Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2

  Storm Tide Rising

  Blackout Volume 2

  D. W. McAliley

  Copyright 2016

  All rights reserved

  This is an original work of fiction.

  Any resemblance of actual people or places is coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to my mom.

  For being with me every step of the way.

  Thank you!

  And to Nanny, who told me to write her something.

  "I have told the whole truth in that....only dead men may tell the whole truth."

  ~Samuel Clemmons on The War Prayer

  Table of Contents

  Pt.1

  Prologue Caged

  Ch. 1 Crowd Control

  Ch.2 Unsafe for Travel

  Ch. 3 The Daily Brief

  Ch. 4 A Position Of Strength

  Ch. 5 By Any Other Name

  Ch. 6 The Beaten Path

  Ch. 7 Rear Guard

  Ch.8 Unasked For Answers

  Ch.9 Historic Latta Plantation

  Ch.10 Breaking Protocol

  Ch.11 Three Days

  Ch.12 The Way Back

  Ch.13 First Light

  Ch.14 Coming Home

  Ch.15 Rise and Shine

  Ch.16 Running Fence

  CH.17 Wheels Down

  CH.18 Downstream

  Ch.19 Peace Offering

  CH.20 Up To Speed

  Ch.21 Unexpected Company

  Ch.22 Footprints In The Sand

  Ch.23 A Bird In The Hand

  CH.24 Over For Dinner

  Ch.25 Routine Inspection

  Ch.26 Trouble Ahead

  Ch.27 Where There's Smoke

  Ch.28 Sacrifice

  Ch.29 The Price That's Paid

  Ch.30 Ahead of the Storm

  Ch.31 Something Local

  Ch.32 No One Home

  Ch.33 First Light

  Ch.34 Person of Interest

  Ch.35 Dry Feet

  Ch.36 Name and Number

  Ch.37 Canning Tomatoes

  Ch.38 Keep It Moving!

  Ch.39 Authorized Personnel

  Ch.40 Losing People

  Ch.41 Need to Know

  Ch.42 Eyes and Ears

  Ch. 43 Strangers

  Ch.44 Shots Fired

  Ch.45 Changing of the Guard

  Ch.46 Aftermath

  Ch.47A Quick Visit

  Ch.48 Bottle Caps

  Ch.49 Going Bad

  Ch.50 Speechless

  Ch.51 Gloves

  Pt.2

  Ch.52 Turning Seasons

  Ch.53 Calculated Risk

  Ch. 54 Mobile

  Ch.55 Wheels

  Ch.56 Never the Question

  Ch.57 While It's Hot

  Ch.58 Half Heard Words

  Ch.59 Word Gets Around

  Ch.60 The Sound of Silence

  Ch.61 The Answer

  Ch.62 Change the Watch

  Ch.63 What’s Coming

  Ch.64 Unexpected Guests

  Ch.65 Sunrise and Smoke

  Ch.66 Small World

  Ch.67 Last Request

  Ch.68 For Your Own Safety

  Ch.69 Where There's Smoke

  Ch.70 Doctor's Orders

  Ch.71 Wrong Side of the Tracks

  Ch.73 An Early Dinner

  Ch.74 To Pass The Time

  Ch.75 Just a Rental

  Ch.76 Thanksgiving

  Ch.77 Unlocking the Door

  Epilogue Storm Tide Rising

  Pt.1

  Prologue

  Caged

  When you hear something often enough, you tend to believe it. That's just how these things go, it seems. And it's even more true when you're young. Things just soak in and sink in, and they stay. That's why it hadn't really surprised Gauge when he'd been handed consecutive life sentences.

  After all, he'd heard for years he was going to die in a cage. That maxim had been repeated so often that people had slowly forgotten that his given name was actually Gauge and not "Cage." By the end, even his own mother had forgotten the name of his childhood.

  At some level, though, he'd stubbornly clung to that name all these years, hidden deep in the recesses of his psyche. He'd held out hope that one day he would taste the sunshine without the sour shadows of prison bars marring it.

  He'd prayed for that day.

  Now, huddled in the darkness on his hard bunk, Gauge wept. He was tired, hungry, and so thirsty he hurt all over. His tears even felt thin and arid, drying around his eyelids rather than on his cheeks. Lightning flashed in the darkness, and the thunder boomed shortly afterward. The two were getting closer together, and that was bad news.

  Memories of his childhood when he'd huddled in the darkness underneath an old plank-framed bed, weeping as a storm passed by leapt suddenly to his mind. It seemed almost silly for a man, a grown and old man, who had seen the things Cage had seen, and done the things he'd done to be afraid of a little thunder. But it was worse than that. The thunder Cage could handle.

  It was the darkness that had always terrified him.

  And now, here he was, dying of thirst, the stink of rotten death almost too thick to breathe. The cells were still locked, but the rest of the prison doors on the block and leading out were flung open. They'd been that way for days, since the blackout even, but it didn't matter. With the steel door between him and the open hallways, freedom was still as far away as it had been for more than forty years. He could see it, but he couldn't reach it.

  Gauge lay on his back, a worn and weathered Bible in his hands, and stared at the ceiling lost in the darkness overhead. The flashes of lightning kept marching closer, and the thunder followed quicker, until the two were happening almost together. Gauge's heart began to pound so hard in his chest that it ached in his shoulders.

  He knew he was dying, and somehow he couldn't find the strength to be worried about it. He closed his eyes to try and block out the flashes of lightning, and as he did, he whispered a prayer. "Lord, I know you suffered worse than this when you died for me on the cross. I done a lot worse things than you ever did, so if this is the price I gotta pay, then I get it. Take me now, and take me quick, Lord. I'm yours."

  Gauge opened his eyes and listened to the roar of a violent storm hammering the prison. A sharp flash of lightning lit up the shadows of the hallway from the thin slit at the very top of his wall that passed for a window. In that instant Gauge saw the old fluorescent lights in the hallway flicker. A faint click reached his ears just before the thunder crashed so loud that it made his eyes water and his ears ring. He cupped his hands to his ears out of instinct, and then he sat up, his mind refusing to believe what his eyes were seeing.

  As Gauge stared at it, the door to his cell swung slowly open.

  Ch. 1

  Crowd Control

  Joe swatted a mosquito against his neck and felt the wet spatter of blood when the insect popped. A shallow creek ran under the main road into Bennett, and Joe was laying flat against the town-side bank, more than a little out of breath. Chris was behind him, peaking over the edge of the bank toward the dark town. Across the creek, Henderson and Eric waited for the signal to cross. For a brief moment, Joe stared up at the deep blue sky and just breathed.

  "So who was he?" Chris whispered from the top edge of the bank.

  "I don't know," Joe replied honestly. "I've never seen that guy before in my life."

  Chris was silent for a long moment before speaking. "This Price—do you trust him?"

  This time it was Joe's turn to be silent. Finally, with a small shrug he answered, "I used to."

  "Hold on," Chris said suddenly, his tone of voice sharp and focused. "I've got movement at the far
end of the street. Small crowd outside a door on the main strip. Can't tell anymore from here, J.T. You might want to take a look."

  Joe crawled up the bank and took the pair of binoculars from Chris as he slid away from the edge.

  "Third door on the facing side of the strip," Chris whispered. "Looks like thirty to fifty people gathered. They don't look happy."

  Joe inched his way to the top of the bank and scanned the edge of town with the binoculars, picking out familiar landmarks to get his bearings and to focus the lenses. He slowly scanned the buildings at the edge of town until he reached the row of shops lining Main Street. He could see only the store fronts facing him on the far side and the backs of the stores on his side. The crowd was gathered in front of MacPhail's Pharmacy, and it swelled out from the masonry store front and filled half the street. It was too far out to see individual shapes clearly, but he could tell it was a good sized group of people, and the entire mass of them seemed to seethe with barely perceived movement.

  Joe slid back down the bank and handed the binoculars back to Chris.

  "That's not good," he said. "Doesn't look like they've busted in yet, though. We're going to have to get closer without them seeing us, if we can. I wish we could pass by it, but that's the drug store and one of the main reasons we hiked four miles hip deep in that creek." Joe gave the motion for Eric and Henderson to cross, then turned back to Chris. "I'll take Henderson with me, and you keep Eric. We'll sprint up to that Stop-n-Shop and grab a corner. Once we're set, you two follow us up. We'll be a couple hundred yards from the crowd, and that's close enough for now."

  Chris leaned over to Eric and began whispering to him about how to run crouched with his rifle at the ready. He demonstrated the best angle to hold the barrel so it didn't bang the knees or snag on brush and that if he had to stop and shoot, it was always quicker to drop to his belly than stand. Eric learned quickly and was practicing his drop as Joe and Henderson inched their way up to the edge of the creek.

  "You good?" Joe asked the young Marine.

  Henderson smiled. "Yes, sir," he replied, "I was never the quickest in Recon school, but I was always the quietest."

  Joe took a deep breath and tapped Henderson twice on the shoulder. The two of them rose as one and slipped over the edge of the bank and into the open. They sprinted a hundred and fifty yards through tall weeds and sawgrass, past the faded town sign, and up to the back corner of the Stop-n-Shop. Joe dropped to one knee facing the front of the store, his back to Henderson's who was facing across the back wall.

  Nothing moved, and there were no faint calls of alarm from the direction of the Pharmacy. After a moment, Joe turned and waved twice. He watched and was impressed with how well Eric moved, considering it was his first attempt at a tactical maneuver. He had a natural talent and, with proper instruction, could become valuable for his stealth. Chris paced himself to stay just a few strides behind Eric, scanning the threat just in case he had to cover the two of them or sprint off and draw their fire.

  When Eric and Chris were against the wall with Henderson, Joe turned to Chris and said, "You and Eric set up here with a good view of the crowd. Henderson, you swing wide right down the street and work your way across to the other side. I'll go left, and we'll meet behind the Pharmacy. It's the third shop from the southeast end of the street. Got it?"

  The three nodded, and Chris turned to whisper softly to Eric. Joe patted his son on the shoulder as Henderson took off into the weeds and underbrush, headed for the far end of the strip of shops. Eric smiled slightly, but his eyes were wide and his breath was coming in rapid, shallow gulps. Still, his hands were steady, and when he held his rifle, it didn't shake even a little.

  Joe took a deep breath and said a prayer. For a moment, his fingers lingered on the leather thong round his neck and the bottle caps strung there. Four of the caps were new enough to have sharp corners that rubbed painfully at his skin. It would be years before the necklace was even marginally comfortable to wear again. Joe rose slightly from his kneeling position and ran without looking back. He looped far to his left and swung behind an old and collapsed wooden tobacco barn. From there, he crossed the road and dropped into the deep drainage ditch on the other side. He could see the tops of the shops two hundred yards ahead of him, but he couldn't see the crowd.

  Joe crept more slowly to his left until a row of young pine trees cut off the view of town. There were only a couple dozen trees in the stand where an old farm house had once stood, but Joe used every one of them he could for cover as he moved. The back side of the stand ran next to the cemetery for one of the oldest churches in town. Joe dropped to a low crouch and shuffled on all fours between the rows of headstones. It was slow going and tough, and as he leaned against the last stone, his triceps were burning and his legs throbbed. But he was behind the row of shops and out of view of the crowd.

  Joe made his way cautiously to the back of the pharmacy and found Henderson waiting against the wall. The young Marine started to say something, but Joe held up a hand and shook his head, sucking in wind as quietly as he could. After a moment, he pointed to the back door, but Henderson shook his head. It was a long shot, but worth checking just in case.

  "Okay," Joe barely whispered, pointing at Henderson's shotgun, "we're going to go out front together. As soon as we come around the corner, you let off a round into the air with the shotgun. Immediately after, I'll pop two with my Beretta, and everyone will go from looking at you, to looking at me. That's when I'll grab whoever's standing in front of them and put a gun to his head. Hopefully that will grab their attention enough that no one thinks to start shooting."

  "You call that a plan?" Henderson whispered back.

  Joe smirked and shrugged his shoulders slightly. "A plan's only good until the first bullets are fired. But this will work."

  "What makes you think they won't just shoot us?" Henderson asked softly as he edged his way to the corner of the narrow alleyway separating the pharmacy and the South Eastern Savings and Loan.

  "These guys aren't serious," Joe replied. "Remember the man with the beard? He was serious. These people out here are pissed off and they’re scared, but they're not really serious yet. We have to convince them that we are and they should back down."

  Henderson didn't make a reply, and Joe was thankful for it. The Marine hugged the pharmacy wall until he was halfway through the alleyway. Joe tapped him on the shoulder, and the two stopped and knelt. Joe gave a countdown then tapped Henderson on the shoulder again, and they made their move. Henderson exploded suddenly from the alleyway; his shotgun raised, and he pulled the trigger.

  Joe stayed close to the Marine's back and as soon as the shotgun round went off, he broke to the left. The entire mob in front of the store recoiled collectively at the boom from Henderson's gun. Joe spotted the leader standing ten feet in front of the crowd, his eyes wide. Joe raised his Beretta and fired three quick rounds into the air, and the crowd shuddered again. The man started fumbling at his waist and managed to pull a small revolver as Joe closed the distance between them.

  Joe hacked down at the inside of the man's wrist with the back side of the Beretta's metal slide as he brought the revolver up, and the pistol went flying to the left. He struck the man in the throat with the butt of the pistol grip and then in the right shoulder. He hit the man with his left hand hard enough to turn him around in a half circle. Joe slipped his left arm around the man's neck, hooking him in a headlock facing the crowd. With the ringleader's body between him and the crowd, Joe leveled his Beretta and scanned the shocked faces in front of him. Henderson kept his position a few feet to the right, giving the crowd two threats to keep an eye on instead of one.

  "Okay," Joe said calmly, "who's in charge here?"

  A moment of stunned silence slipped by, and then the man in Joe's grip stammered, "Y-y-you are."

  Ch.2

  Unsafe for Travel

  Mike slowly eased the door open and checked the street for any movement. After a long moment
, he decided it was clear and stepped out with his rifle at the ready. The would-be cat burglar from the night before was gone, though he'd left a dark brown stain on the door frame. For a couple of nights, at least, that might serve as a warning to others. Eventually, though, someone would kick in the door and try to take whatever was left inside.

  Alyssa was close behind him. She paused for a moment at the threshold, took a deep breath, and closed the door. After a brief hesitation, she locked the deadbolt and the handle. Mike started to ask why she'd bothered, but she shot him a mean look, so he closed his mouth with the words unsaid. Alyssa stepped down off the porch and kept walking; she never looked back once.

  "You said my sister, Maria is okay?" Alyssa asked over her shoulder.

  Mike stifled a sigh. "When I left her early yesterday morning, she was," he replied as he had every time she'd asked the question. "I imagine she'll still be fine."