End Days Super Boxset (101 page)

"How could I forget?" Greene said, rolling his eyes.

"And we're all concerned by the gross incompetence and mismanagement on all levels." Hodder held out his hand and began to count off each finger with his other hand. "There's favoritism among the soldiers and reports of abuse inflicted on civilians, primarily female. Ebola patients are being shorted on medical care and resources.

“There are no effective measures in place to contain this disease. The invisible barrier between the healthy and the sick is a joke. And lastly, we’ve already reached capacity, yet the soldiers keep bringing people in. This is unacceptable."

Greene remained silent for a moment then slowly leaned back in his reclining swivel chair and smiled. "That's quite a mouthful, Hodder. I can tell you used to be in politics; however,
used to
is the operative word here. It's no damn wonder they threw your ass outta office."

Hodder tried to cut him off, but Greene wouldn't have any of it. He kept talking, his voice angry and loud, and stood up from his chair.

"No! Now you listen here. These soldiers have sacrificed everything to be here and man this outpost just so ungrateful turds like you can disparage them. Not on my watch. It ain't happening. You don't like the way things are done here, then how's about you leave? We're under strict orders not to let anyone leave these walls, but I'll make a special exception just for you."

"Not happening," Bill said.

Major Greene leaned forward with veins bulging at his temples. Undeterred, Hodder continued. "I have something better. You have one hour to gather your troops and vacate this base so we can ensure that it will be run properly."

Greene's eyes lit up and he erupted with laughter. Bill waited patiently for the major to catch his breath. Greene looked at him with near tears in his eyes. "And who's going to take over after we leave?"

"Me," Hodder said matter-of-factly.

Greene raised his hand and slapped the desk, laughing.

"I'm not joking," Hodder said.

Major Greene rose, trying to catch his breath. His face then took on a more serious look as he grabbed his landline phone. "Well, if you're being serious, I'm gonna hafta have you locked up, Hodder. I don't take too kindly to threats. Looks like Base 42 just got its first prisoner." He looked toward the door and shouted. “Specialist Santos!” But Santos didn’t respond.

Bill suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a 9mm handgun. Greene's face twitched as he stared ahead, stunned.

"Now whatcha gonna do with that?" he asked in a quiet tone. His face contorted once he considered the fact that Hodder was even armed. "And how in holy hell did you get a gun?"

"Put down the phone," Hodder said.

"Go to hell," Greene replied while pressing the emergency button on the phone.

Without further hesitation, Bill blasted a shot right into Major Greene's face, pitching his head back and tossing him out of his swivel chair. The gunshot was louder than he had anticipated. Predictably, the door swung open and Santos stormed in.

"It's OK!" Hodder shouted, putting his hands up. "I got it under control."

Santos scanned the room and saw a running blood stain on the wall. He looked down to see Major Greene lying on the floor, his chair knocked over, his motionless legs sticking out from under his desk.

"Holy shit," he said, breathing heavily and staring at the major’s motionless body. "You really did it."

Hodder stood up and smacked him on the shoulder to get his attention. Santos jerked his head to look right at him. "We don't have much time," Hodder said. "How many soldiers in the TOC?"

Santos thought to himself. "Three—I think."

"I need your PIN." Hodder noticed Santos's hesitation and spoke calmly. "This is a matter of survival. We're all in now, and there's no turning back. We don't have to kill them all, only the ones who fight back."

Santos nodded. His heart was beating so fast he felt like he was going to hyperventilate. He walked with Hodder out of the room and put his PIN into the keypad.

"You ready?" Hodder asked, holding the pistol in the air.

"Yeah," Santos said.

The door beeped and he pushed it open. The three soldiers inside, already suspicious of the gun blast, were standing. Santos held his rifle up and pointed it at them.

"Hands up, all of you!"

They looked at each other, than back to Santos, confused.

"I mean it! Put 'em up!"

"Specialist Santos, what is this all about?" the young captain asked.

Suddenly, Hodder appeared at Santos's side and fired multiple shots into each man. The flat screen behind the captain exploded and shattered into pieces. The men hit the ground with shouts of agony followed by silence. The blasts left Santos’s ears ringing, even though he had dropped his rifle and covered them the minute Hodder started shooting. He turned to Hodder, enraged.

"I thought you were going to take them prisoner!"

Hodder scanned the room for any others but didn't see any movement. "They were too high ranking. We can’t trust them. Besides, the lieutenant was going for his sidearm."

"This is crazy," Santos said, rubbing his shaved head.

Bill lowered his pistol and looked to Santos. "Listen carefully. We need to destroy every piece of communications in this room. Phones, radios, computers, you name it."

Santos looked at him funny but could see that he was serious.

Hodder was emphatic. "The world's on fire right now and we have to keep the flames from reaching us. You're going to take my guys to the armory, just like we discussed. Then, we take the base."

Santos knelt down to pick up his rifle. He tried to quash the sick feeling in his stomach by blocking out whatever he had just done and the things he was about to do. Hodder walked over to a line of computer monitors and smashed the glowing screens out with the handle of his pistol as glass flew everywhere. Santos walked over to the phones and radios, battering them with the buttstock of his rifle.

***

Just as planned, they reached the armory with Hodder’s militia of thirty men who had vowed to help overtake the base. The operation was in full swing, and they didn’t waste any time disposing of the bunker guard who manned the door. Hodder would have preferred a night operation, but there was no sense in waiting any longer. They had to strike, and they had to do it fast.

Specialist Santos used his PIN code to open the armory, and the men stormed the vault, cutting the locks of the weapons racks with bolt cutters and taking every rifle they could carry. The next room over stored the magazines and ammunition, and they quickly loaded their weapons as Hodder held up his watch. “Five minutes, gentlemen. We strike in five minutes. Be mindful of any civilians. We don’t want them to get caught in the middle of this thing.”

The men, most of them ex-cons, were a diverse group of thieves, gang members, and felons. Hodder had sought each of them out with promises of sharing his vision of power and survival in the new world. They rammed the magazines into their rifles and were prepared for war.

“Remember everything we discussed,” Hodder continued. “We take the guards in the towers out first. Then we round up every soldier on base. If they surrender willingly, they live. But if they so much as hesitate, you cannot do the same. Remember your teams: first wave, crowd control, and treatment centers. And finally, we can’t let anyone escape. Today, this base is officially going off the radar.”

The men nodded enthusiastically in agreement. Their weapons were armed and ready. “Let’s move!” Hodder said. The men swung their fists in the air and cheered, pumping themselves up for the raid.

They stormed out of the armory and into broad daylight as the men immediately started shooting. Hodder stood safely by the bunker, watching his plan come into bloody fruition as the men moved on with pure, hardened resolve. The guards in both towers were quickly eliminated. The first few shots startled the civilians on the base. They immediately started running for cover when they saw the herd of armed, wild-eyed men storming the area. Taken by surprise, many of the soldiers were slow to respond. Against Hodder’s wishes, many of them were shot on the spot. Hodder’s men dispersed and started rounding up all the civilians at gunpoint, ordering them back into the living quarters.

Shots rang out from afar, taking out some of Hodder’s men. A group of soldiers moved into position and began fighting back. A lengthy firefight followed, but in the end, the soldiers were overwhelmed. After the military threat was eliminated, an opposing group of civilians tried to fight back against Hodder’s men with anything they could find: rocks, glass bottles, and weapons from the dead soldiers. Hodder had expected this and had told his men earlier to be prepared for a resistant civilian force. They were soon extinguished as well.

After an exhausting and bloody battle, Hodder’s men soon had control of the base. However, one crucial task remained. They doused all eleven Ebola treatment centers in gasoline as the medical personnel fled in terror. The centers were soon lit on fire with all the patients inside clinging frantically to their beds, howling with pain. As the centers lit up like torches and burned to the ground, the screams of the trapped patients were the things that nightmares were made of.

Reno, Nevada: Two months after the outbreak

Greg Atkins had a mission, and he was already running against the clock. His friend and partner in prepping, Veronica, had been taken at gunpoint by a deranged man who claimed to be a soldier in the army. Her fate was largely unknown to Greg, but he knew he had to do everything in his power to try to rescue her. Going after Veronica changed his hunker-down plan considerably. Traveling anywhere, no matter how close or remote, posed a risk. But the Ebola virus soon became the least of his problems.

The state-mandated quarantine and travel ban had effectively isolated most of Nevada, and its most populated cities, from Reno to Las Vegas, had descended into anarchy. The military had moved out and positioned themselves along the northern borders of Nevada to keep anyone from getting in or out. The Ebola virus was too powerful to control and had spread too rapidly. Officials felt that the risks of sending personnel into infected areas far outweighed the benefits. As personnel were ordered to pull out of infected areas, officials felt it was best to monitor the outbreak remotely and wait for the contagion to peak and subside. No one would have believed it, but the government agencies had largely abandoned Nevada.

Many quarantine sites, such as Base 42, were left to fend for themselves. No one was going for them until the area had been officially determined safe from disease. Two months after the outbreak, no such call had been made. In the media, it was declared unconscionable by pundits, politicians, and celebrities alike that so many people would be left on their own, but as the virus spread to neighboring states, people began to accept the most extreme measures in containment.

Despite being shot in the leg by Veronica’s attacker, Greg was determined to leave Aunt Tilda's ranch and find her, wherever she might be. The man, who had identified himself as Sergeant Charles Irwin, claimed to have come from Base 42. He had tried to convince Greg and Veronica to go back with him, stating that he was on a scouting mission to help local residents and inform them of the military outpost.

But Aunt Tilda's butchered body wrapped in a tarp in the basement told a far different story. Greg didn't believe a thing Irwin had told him, if he was even who he said he was. For all he knew, Veronica could have been taken to a basement of some house, tied to the radiator and God knows what else.

The man was indeed from Base 42, but he wasn't a soldier, he was an impostor. His real name was Jacob, a drifter from Reno with a lengthy rap sheet. After the mutiny in Base 42, he volunteered to go into town and search abandoned homes for supplies, and it just so happened that Aunt Tilda and her neighbor, Joe, lived along his route. But they weren't the first. If the home was occupied, Jacob’s plan was to work his way in by posing as a soldier and then scope the place out from the inside.

Once in Tilda's home, he knew he had discovered the jackpot. She was a self-proclaimed "homesteader" and had up to five months of food and supplies stored in her basement. Things escalated when her neighbor Joe showed up to check on her, spooking Jacob just as he was trying to win her over.

An army vet himself, Joe had a number of questions for Jacob: who he was, where he had been stationed, and general military stuff. Questions that one soldier would normally ask another, nothing out of the ordinary, but Jacob panicked, and as a result, he shot Joe and Tilda, then took his knife to their bodies for “extra fun.”

Greg knew that the longer Veronica was missing, the worse the outcome would be. She had been gone for nearly five hours. His leg throbbed with pain from the gunshot wound, but he was relieved that the .22 bullet had been relatively small. It could have been much worse. Perhaps the wound Greg had inflicted on Jacob’s shoulder with his Beretta would slow them down.

Come morning, he limped to the kitchen table using a nearby wooden cane, which had probably belonged to Veronica's uncle. He sat and opened a large map booklet of the state he had taken from his van. Light poured into the kitchen from the skylights. He estimated his current location on the map, just outside Reno, and saw that Sun Valley was not too far. Finding a secret military outpost, however, wasn’t going to be easy. From what he had heard, it was a small base hidden behind concrete walls, barricades, and concertina wire.

The main highway, Interstate 580, would not be without its share of risk, but it was the only route into Sun Valley. Staying safe and mobile would require a careful balancing act and therefore take time—a commodity Greg did not have. With his leg propped up on a chair and his mind racing, he opened his notebook and began to jot down his plan for the trip:

Distance from Reno to Sun Valley - roughly fifteen miles

Top van off with siphoned fuel

Load up with supplies

Van as mobile prep unit

Hide van under camouflage

Continue trip on foot

Bring: Bug-out bag, weapons, night vision, binos, trip wire

Set-up stakeout point outside of base

Survey and record activity

Find a way in, find a way out

Greg stopped writing. His plan was simple enough, but he didn't like to throw caution to the wind. He wanted a reliable strategy with an outcome that was nearly guaranteed. For starters, he wasn't sure if Veronica had even been taken to Base 42. Secondly, he wasn't sure if he could find the base, and lastly, he was in no condition to be traveling a great distance on foot. Driving the van too close to the base would alert anyone there of his presence. A successful mission would take tact, planning, and focus. He was no good to Veronica captured or dead.

"Son of a bitch," he said, pushing himself up from the chair at the kitchen table. His leg still ached, and he had a pain in his chest just from thinking about Veronica. He had committed himself to protecting her. She was his friend. They been through months together, hunkering down in Greg's house in Carson City. They had warded off two home invasions through sheer teamwork. Now everything had changed. She was gone. Kidnapped by a psychopath.

"I should never have taken my eye off him," Greg said out loud. "I should have shot him the minute we saw him in the house."

He pushed himself away from the table and hobbled to the living room couch. He vowed that he would never hesitate again. Shooting first and asking questions later was part of the way things would go from now on.

The house was quiet and deserted. There was no longer any power as the generator had run out of fuel overnight. He took careful steps, using the cane to reduce the weight on his bad leg. Most of his supplies were still in the van, packed and ready to go. The thought of Aunt Tilda’s body in the basement gave him the chills.

He made his way to the bathroom down the hall, still wearing only boxer shorts, a T-shirt, and a band of gauze around his leg. There was just enough natural light in the bathroom that allowed him to see himself in the mirror. His hair was shaggy and unkempt. In place of his normally clean-shaven face, he fashioned a light brown beard. There were bags under his eyes and a paleness to his skin. His brown eyes were slightly bloodshot, but not Ebola red. Considering the pace at which the outbreak had spread, it was a miracle he was still alive. And that's how Greg wanted to keep it.

He had lost weight over the months and looked a lot thinner as a result. Tired of gazing, he looked away from the mirror and began the hard process of cleaning and changing the bandage on his wound.

After his shower, Greg dressed in tactical, desert-tan shirt, pants, and ammunition vest. He had re-dressed his wound and was ready to get on the move. He left the house using the cane and went to his van under the light of a new day. From the back, he pulled out a hose and a ten-gallon fuel can and filled it up with gas siphoned from both Tilda's and Veronica's cars. In the end, he had ten gallons of fuel. Sun Valley was close, but he didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

Before getting in the van, he stretched and mentally prepared himself for the journey. He had weapons, optics, food, and water. There were plenty of resources for a stakeout. He took one last look at Tilda’s house and breathed in the open air. The home was an ideal place, perfect for hunkering down, and he couldn't understand why things couldn't have worked out as planned.

After leaving Tilda’s, he took the barren 580 Interstate, keeping careful watch for any other vehicles on the road. His van was a gold mine for thieves. It had a stockpile of enough food, weapons, and survival gear to support an entire family. A few miles down the two-lane road, his eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what a slumped figure on the side of the road might be. It looked like a large dog or some other roadkill. He soon realized it was human.

His heart sank and he slowed the van to get a closer look. It was a man lying on his side in a pile of dirt rocks and a dried puddle of blood. He was rendered unrecognizable by a litany of open sores. His mouth was wide open and bulging blisters covered his eyes. In his frozen contorted agony, it was clear the man had experienced the furthest thing from a painless death. Greg stepped on the gas and sped past the body the minute he saw that it wasn't Veronica.

Down the road ahead and all around him were nothing but desert and wide-open terrain. He was on the outskirts of civilization, exactly the kind of area one might find a secret military base. He kept his eyes peeled for any road signs. The surrounding area was a diverse range of hills, plateaus, and valleys. Predominantly made up of sand, dirt, dust, and rocks, there were also shaded areas with patches of grass and large rock outcroppings—perfect for concealment—and acacia trees. Their spread branches gave the impression of beauty and calm.

The digital clock on the radio said that it was 11:14, and as far as he was concerned, it looked to be almost noon. The glaring sun in the cloudless sky was overhead, slightly to the east. He wore his favorite pair of sunglasses and tried the car stereo, which only played static. Radio transmission had been fading in and out as far back as Carson City.

It was as if the residents had officially been cut off from the rest of the world. Complete quarantine and isolation. No power. No running water. Not even working radio frequencies to let them know what was going on. His dashboard GPS had no signal. His cell phone was the same. All he had was a map and compass.

A few more miles down the interstate, there was a small intersection. There was a dirt road on both sides that stretched into the desert as far as he could see. In over ten miles, he hadn't seen a single vehicle, just one dead body on the side of the road. Following the map, he took a right turn down the long dirt road. As he turned, the sun glared right into the windshield, nearly blinding him. He stopped the van and glanced at the map, looking for any identifiable terrain or landmarks. There was a valley displayed nearby, but no military facility was identified within range. Something ahead, however, piqued his interest: a faded, green road sign.

Greg put the van in gear and sped toward the sign, drawing closer. A thick cloud of dust was left in his wake as rocks, stones, and pebbles flew up from behind the tires, crackling underneath the rubberlike kettle corn. The dirt road became more bumpy and rough, as if it hadn’t been traveled on in a while. Two large mountains were in the distance and the road seemed to curve right between them, similar to the valley terrain shown on the map.

The map also showed a nearby cliff, indicated by curvy contour lines with tick marks pointed toward low ground. Greg believed the top of the cliff would be a perfect stakeout spot if he could find cover. Somewhere shaded, he hoped, with plenty of concealment. Finding higher ground in general was important to his mission.

The sign got closer in range and Greg could make out the lettering. In two simple words it read, “Restricted Area.” He slowed the van to a roll as he studied the rusty, metallic sign, looking for any other clues. There was no additional text anywhere on the sign. There was no “by order of the Defense Department,” or the FBI, or any other department or agency. The sign also looked like it had been there since the 1950s. It could mean nothing, or it might be an indication that he was traveling in the right direction.

A few more miles down the road, he saw some lonely acacia trees amid the patchy terrain of dead grass and weeds. Vegetation appeared closer to the mountains where some grass had retained its color and the flat land gradually began to descend into the valley. Greg’s heart raced with anticipation, but he remained alert of his surroundings, considering every possible spot up and around the mountains that could be a lookout or ambush site. He steered with one hand while positioning his rifle next to his seat with the other. There was still no base in sight.

He drove up over a hill as the path became even more rugged. His van was not an off-road vehicle by any stretch, but it had been his best option for mobile prepping. The path winded up and to the side of a mountain, and Greg hoped for a spot high enough where he could park the van and conduct reconnaissance. His engine rattled and heaved, clearly struggling the weight of Greg’s supply haul. It was a company van, but his last concern was the condition he kept it in. He’d pay for the repairs himself if he had to—if things ever went back to normal.

Like an oasis, Greg found a spot up the mountain where he could park the car and look out over a cliff. It was shaped and located exactly as it was shown on his map. Before reaching the summit, he noticed an ideal spot to hide the van in.

There was a large open crevice on the side of a hill between large stone pillars, with branches extending from the cracks. Greg felt the time was right to ditch the van and set up his stakeout spot. If the base was anywhere remotely close, he was high enough to see it.