Warfare Season: An Apocalyptic Thriller (5 page)

Austin went on his way.

“
Get him!”
Thomas shouted. “Get him!”

Austin heard two different
sets of footsteps racing up to him from behind. He turned around just
in time to see a stranger getting ready to charge into him.

Austin had now put it
together. Thomas had an accomplice all along. The plan was to pretend
to be at least halfway nice so that Austin would let his guard down.
It was an elementary plan at best; sounded like SOCIOPATH 101, in
fact. Yet, Austin still fell for it, but not because he was
unintelligent; it was because he was too nice in a world full of
sadistic cruelty. Still, perhaps he should have known better. When
someone had to convince you against your intuition that they weren't
going to rob you, it usually meant they most certainly were going to
rob you.

The accomplice grabbed at
the bag, trying to pull it away from Austin. He hit Austin in the
face with one hand and grabbed at the bag with the other.

Austin held on to the
bug-out bag like his life literally depended on it, because in many
ways, it did. He held on to it with both hands, taking the hits and
not retaliating with any hits of his own. It was better to not risk
losing his upper hand on the bug-out bag.

Now Thomas had caught up to
them, grabbing at the bag and landing some hits of his own.

Austin couldn't remember
where he had placed his switchblade. He either put it in his pocket
or in the bug-out bag. If he reached for his pocket now, that would
only leave one of his hands on the bug-out bag. Whenever he put it in
his pocket, he would usually clip it on so that it wouldn't fall out.
He briefly looked down at his front pockets, trying to spot the clip
hanging on to his outer pocket, but his long shirt covered the area.

He managed to kick Thomas
in the shin, causing him to fall back and lose his grip on the bag.
Austin immediately reached down into his right pocket, frantically
reaching around for the knife. He couldn't find it. He was about to
give up when he decided to dig deeper. He found it. The switchblade
had been resting on the other side of his pocket, sunken deep to the
bottom. The clip had not been attached. He drew the blade promptly.

Thomas and his accomplice
backed off.

“
Alright,”
Thomas pleaded. He was walking backwards with his hands in front of
him. “We're sorry.”

Just as they were acting
like they were going to walk away, they each picked up a broken tree
branch from the grassy area to their right. The broken tree branches
were the size of baseball bats and could be used just the same. Once
again, they both charged towards Austin, swinging the club-like
pieces of lumber at him.

Thomas swung and missed.

The accomplice also swung
and missed, but this time, Austin was able to counter strike, slicing
the accomplice's forearm. The accomplice let out a desperate cry of
pain, dropping the tree branch to the ground.

Austin took another swing
at him, this time slashing his throat. The accomplice's eyes rolled
into the back of his head as he lost his balance and grasped for air.

Now too terrified to get
close, Thomas threw the tree branch at Austin and missed him, hitting
his own partner instead.

Austin dropped his bug-out
bag and charged toward Thomas, easily catching up to him.

Thomas desperately wanted
to run, but he didn't want to turn his back on the person wielding a
knife. He had thrown away his only means of a weapon. His eyes turned
to sheer terror. He now turned his back to run, but it was too late.

Austin slashed at Thomas,
cutting his shoulder.

“
AAAAAAAHHHH!”
Thomas screamed. He briefly looked back, and then he looked forward
and started running again.

Austin took another swing
at Thomas, scraping the back of his neck. Thomas screamed again and
kept running.

Not wanting to get too far
away from the bug-out bag he had dropped and left behind, Austin
stopped chasing him. He jogged back to his bug-out bag and picked it
up.

Thomas looked back one more
time, before disappearing down the street.

The lifeless accomplice was
lying face-up on the concrete in a small sea of blood. His neck was
painted red.

With all of the carnage
Austin had seen recently, he thought nothing of leaving the corpse
right there out in the open. It didn't bother him that there might be
some forensic evidence left behind on the scene. Crooked systems and
corrupt laws didn't matter, especially not now. The important thing
was that he knew it was self-defense.

Had it happened a few weeks
earlier, it would be a whole different story. But in an apocalyptic
event, man-made laws didn't really matter anymore.

He cleaned off his blade
and kept walking, more hurriedly than before due to the added
adrenaline he had just received.

His blisters were really
throbbing now. He wished he could take a day
—
or
a week
—
off to
rest. But there were no days off. The thought of taking painkillers
for blisters sounded absurd to him, but he didn't have much choice.
He popped a painkiller and continued on.

* * *

The sergeant had
called Corporal Johnson into his office.

“
Corporal,”
the sergeant addressed. “I need this area clear. We were not
given orders to stand down, so that's not what we're going to do.
Word has it that there are still quite a few terrorists roaming the
streets. There are dead bodies lying out there because these people
are killing each other. I want everybody off the streets. We can
worry about the rural areas later, but we need to clear the city
streets. As far as I'm concerned, anyone that refuses to cooperate
with us by allowing us to place them in an emergency camp is on the
same side as the terrorists. These people need to either be in an
emergency camp or dead.”

“
Yes sir!”
Corporal Johnson exclaimed.

“
I'm not
coming with you, so you're gonna have to run this show for a little
while until we link up. There's a squad waiting for you outside.”

“
Yes,
sir!”

The troops
gathered and moved out.

* * *

It was now afternoon. The
bright sun felt like it was hitting Austin hard, draining him even
more. His back was slightly slouched and his shoulders were sagging
with weary discomfort. He had gone through more water than he had
hoped he would need, but he still had enough to get him through the
journey, assuming he made it to his Uncle's place within the next
four days.

A sign that welcomed him to
the next town was hanging several yards ahead of him. He was
officially out of the city.

The area was eerily quiet.
He stumbled upon what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Of course,
it might not have been completely vacant, but he needed to get out of
the hot sun.

It still amazed him at how
fast a person's life could totally change over the course of a week,
all due to one large series of chaotic events.

Occasionally, he would try
to piece together how the riots started. Had they been planned years
ahead of time? It didn't really matter, but he was curious.

Although he couldn't see
any faces looking at him through the window frames, he couldn't help
but think that the building had eyes. He walked right through the
torn down fence that had once barricaded the abandoned building,
keeping close watch over the windows to make sure no one was getting
ready to aim their guns at him. Even with his sunglasses on, the
glare of the sun was intense enough to make him squint when he looked
up toward the sky.

The painkillers he had
taken in the morning were scheduled to have worn off by now, but
perhaps because of the adrenaline, he didn't notice his blisters for
the time being.

* * *

The FBI had been
hard at work, tracking people through their cell phones. They were
easily able to pinpoint a location on Austin. Although they didn't
know exactly where he was, they knew which general area he was in
based on the cell phone tower in his jurisdiction. They moved out
promptly in search of him.

* * *

As Austin got closer to the
building, he realized that it was actually an abandoned mental
hospital. The word ASYLUM was engraved into the wall just above the
main entrance.

He went inside and looked
around. Not a whole lot had been left behind, except for a large
amount of debris that was scattered throughout the area.

After glimpsing through a
series of dilapidated rooms, he found a room with only minimal dust
and debris. He chose to stay on the ground level, making escape less
difficult if necessary. The staircase looked unsafe, anyway.

He sat down on the cold
concrete floor and washed down a snack with some water. He stared out
the window towards a serene-looking scene that he assumed would
probably not last for much longer. He took his cell phone out and
started doodling through it. Not long after that, he fell asleep.

By the time Austin awoke
from a strange vivid dream, it was dark outside. It took him a few
seconds to remember where he was and how he had gotten there. He had
slept longer than he thought. The noise was what had woken him up.
Someone
—
more
likely a group of people
—
was stirring around on the floor above him. The ceiling sounded like
it was going to cave in.

Austin got up and looked
out the broken window. An armed group of people were walking towards
the building. It was unclear whether they were vigilantes,
terrorists, or just a deranged group of people trying to survive, but
they were carrying high-powered rifles.

He got his stuff together
in a hurry and headed toward the hall, stopping at the doorway. He
peaked into the hallway. A myriad of light beams from flashlights
began to illuminate the entrance of the building.

Not wanting to take any
chances of being detected, Austin turned off his flashlight. Hoping
to find a way out in the back, he dashed down the hall in the
opposite direction, leaving his cell phone behind.

Heavy footsteps were now
pouring down the delicate staircase, walking single file so as not to
take any chances of having the old staircase collapse.

As he got to the end of the
pitch black dark hall, he tuned on his flashlight. He walked into
room after room; all of them were dead-end pathways.

Voices were now traveling
down the hall in his direction. They were getting closer.

“
Whose flashlight is
that?” one of them asked.

“
I don't know,”
another one answered. “Bob, is that you?” he called down
the hall.

Austin turned off his
flashlight.

“
He just turned it
off.”

“
Yeah, that's bogus.
Something ain't right.”

Austin turned around the
corner and made his way down another hallway. Every hallway seemed to
lead to three more hallways as he nervously maneuvered his way
through the dark building.

It was like a maze.

He walked himself right
into a corner, and before he had a chance to backtrack, he could
already hear the voices in the very near vicinity, closing in on him.

He was trapped.

“
We know this
building a lot better than you do!” one of the voices shouted.
“What do you say we do this the easy way? Let us kill you
quick. Don't make us torture you to death.”

“
We'll find you!”
another voice shouted. “No matter where you are, we'll find
you!”

* * *

The threatening
group didn't see the soldiers when they pulled up in their military
vehicles. Neither did Austin as he stood perfectly still in the
enclosed area of the building. Not only were they too distracted to
see, but the military had taken extra precautions to avoid being
seen. After tracing Austin's cell phone, and after having already
searched the rest of the area, they decided he might have retreated
to the abandoned mental asylum, which also happened to be a place
where drug dealers gathered.

* * *

“
In here,
Joe,” one of the riflemen warned. “He's in here.”

Austin made a
run for it, dashing into the next room. It was a large room; probably
the old cafeteria, what was left of it.

Gunshots went
off. Some of the bullets got very close to Austin. He made it all the
way to the end of the room without turning on his flashlight. There
were no exit doors, but there were windows. He found a broken chair
leg lying on the floor and used it to start hammering out the glass.

“
In here!
Don't let him get away!”

Austin kept
knocking out the glass.

They entered the
room and once again pointed their rifles at Austin.

“
I told
you to do this the easy way! Now we're gonna
—

Now a different
set of gunshots were going off. Screams emanated throughout the
building as the military began shooting down everyone with a gun.