Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder (2 page)

If the feds were trying to use this disaster as an opportunity to remove all opposition and allow nature to take its course, people like my father, who was rapidly becoming a well-known author and teacher on survival and homesteading techniques, might be a target. If the DHS killers were willing to brave the security of an Air Force base to kill a mouthy general, what would they do to a private citizen like my father?

And when did I start thinking of him as an old man? Since when had my father been that, other than what my mother called him? He was always strong and ready for any challenge. Now I could see the silver threading through his dark hair, and the gray creeping into his well-kept beard. The lack of sleep made his eyes appear rimmed with kohl.

“From what you’ve said, I take it you think you still have more to do out there?”

“Out there, in here? Does it matter? We either need to improve security or relocate if you are taking that many hits. But no, I’m through traveling and finished with that business.”

“Well, that business seems to be the way of the world these days. I can’t tell you how worried your mom and I were when the lights went out and you were gone. Like I said, we’d all but given up hope of seeing you again. Pops kept the faith, though.” My dad’s voice drifted off and he was absorbed with his own thoughts for the moment.

“What happened to the rest of your friends? What about Barry? Or Steve Sinclair?”

“Steve? I have no idea. I figured he’d be on the way from the start, but I never saw hide nor hair of him or his family. As for Barry, well, he didn’t make it. I was just thinking about him the other day. He was wondering why you were working so hard, especially on the tactical training courses. I just said if you got into the Naval Academy, I thought you might want to try out for the SEAL program once you graduated.”

I laughed at that. Barry Windsor owned the local outdoor range and sponsored a lot of the shooting competitions where I’d competed. He was a certified gun nut and since his flat feet kept him out of the Army, he tried to make up for it by helping out local vets who’d landed on hard times by offering them a hiring preference at the range. He also was a very successful businessman and could afford to hire some of the best trainers money could bring to his establishment.

No, I wasn’t laughing at Barry, but at the very idea I would choose to volunteer for that kind of training. I’d read a few books and decided I would never voluntarily go through that kind of torture. Those guys had my utmost respect, but I was just not that much into self-sacrifice. I said as much to my father and he laughed, too. “So what happened?” I asked. “I assumed he would be here. In fact, I was kinda counting on it.”

My dad looked down, his eyes suddenly clouded with pain. “You know I invited Barry and his family to shelter here, but they decided to stick it out at their place. They were holding out with some guys from his store and seemed to be well stocked. But they were too close to the highway and managed to attract the wrong kind of attention. We heard a distress signal from them about a month into this mess, but by the time we got there, it was too late. Pops and I figured there must have been over three hundred attackers. Barry and his crew killed a slew of them, but they were still overrun. The whole place was fully engulfed in flames before we even made their turnoff. We took a quick look around and got the hell out of there.”

“Did anybody…?”

“We didn’t find any still living, Lucas. The looters had already taken any supplies or food that survived the burning and lit out. They didn’t stop to bury their dead. Just stripped them of any weapons and moved on.”

I thought on that bit of bad news for a while. Barry and his friends would have been an asset to the ranch as well as being good company. The number of attackers made me think of mob versus a well-planned assault. Probably a group of survivors who drifted together on the road and were starved just enough to risk such an obviously fortified residence.

“And Ripley?”

“All gone, Lucas. Hank’s Diner was looted, then burned, and the minimart was cleaned out by the second day. Anybody who lived close by bugged out within the first week. No water nearby, you know. I think the school buildings are still standing, but they’ve been looted, too.”

“Jeez,” I said with a tired sigh. “I was thinking they might be isolated enough to escape. I guess nowhere is safe. All that killing…”

“So you had to fight to get here, son. I get that. As long as you remembered who you are and why you were fighting, then everything else is secondary. You are alive. Them’s that tried to kill you are not. I’m not preaching at you here. I had the same talk with Pops when I got back that first time. And he had a similar conversation with Grandpa Bill when he got back from Vietnam. I suspect the fighting nature might be in our blood. You just cannot let it come home with you is all.”

This was a whole other side to my father, a different man altogether, and I realized suddenly he wasn’t treating me like a kid anymore. I was still his son, but not a child. This was how he treated adults.

More, this is how he treated the few men who were part of his fraternity. Not a college fraternity, of course, but that group of men who had been in the military and served their country with honor. Not that I would qualify. I’d taken no oath, and served no one except myself and those I cared about. I was no soldier. I was a killer, pure and simple.

“I managed to make it two weeks before I had to kill anybody. Just stayed low and foraged when the packaged food I’d gathered from the hotel ran out. Then I got invited to a dinner I tried to avoid, since I was on the menu. Honestly, I don’t remember how many I killed to get out of that little slice of Hell, but I did.”

“Please tell me you are joking,” my father said uncertainly.

I gave him a flat look before answering. “I saw it happen the first time two weeks after the lights went out. Not the last time, but that was as close as I ever come to the eaters catching me.”

I saw my father blanch at the idea, but he knew it was true. We’d war-gamed this very scenario before. The starving people would only be held back by the taboo for so long before their bellies demanded to be filled. By whatever means necessary.

“But after that, even though I tried to stay to the woods and live off the land, every time I went around anywhere that might be inhabited, I usually ended up having to kill somebody or several somebodies to get free.”

“So, you just started walking? Headed home? I’m so glad you made it, but didn’t you pay any attention to the stuff I taught you? You should have found someplace relatively safe and weathered the initial die-off before trying to make it here. Don’t get me wrong, this is great you are here, and don’t ever tell your mom I said different, but why?”

My father had a good point, and I didn’t think he meant anything untoward with remarks. Heck, he was absolutely right.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to, Dad. I told Mr. Keller the same thing. I kept going because there was no better place to be found, not until we met up with them. Everywhere, even the smallest town I came across, looked like a war had already happened. There were a few enclaves set up, and trading posts that would take ammo for food, but nothing that looked anywhere close to safe. We’ve both read books that speculated about what the world would be like, if we ever suffered an EMP or CME. They were a start, but Dad, you cannot believe how bad it was up north. And how quick things went sour.”

He nodded, and I was sure he’d seen similar actions here. My grandfather’s death assured that.

“So, you have a fiancé? I did not see that coming. Have you told her about Dana? And…”

“I’ve told Amy everything about me, Dad. I didn’t say much about the ranch, because that’s not my story to tell, but yes, she knows.”

I thought about telling him everything. About my plans and my training. And about how Amy even laughed and said she worried I had something really bad to tell her when I admitted my nefarious plot. Nefarious? Yeah, that probably fits. I laughed.

That got a curious look from my father, and I decided to change the subject a little bit. “So what does Mom think about Amy? Don’t be nice, Dad. Tell me the truth. I can already imagine her arguments against such a thing.”

That got my dad to give a careful chuckle before he answered. “Uh, if you already know then why ask me? You know how your mom can be sometimes, when it comes to you kids. She’s a momma bear when it comes to you or Paige. But I have to wonder how you’ve been sort of vague as to how the two of you met up.”

Crap. He wasn’t going to let it alone. All right, he asked for the straight story. “Okay, Dad, as I mentioned, you know I left a lot out earlier. Some of it, Mom and Paige don’t need to hear. Not now, and not ever. I won’t hide anything from you, but some stories aren’t really mine to tell. So I’ll give you the straight information, but some questions I will not answer. You will have to get that information from the source. Then you let me know what happened to Grandpa. Deal?”

I didn’t like dictating terms to my father that way, but he was the one who taught me about holding confidences. I would never tell him about exactly how I found Amy, or what her uncle had done. To my surprise, Dad agreed with hesitation.

About a half hour later, when I was halfway through the tale of getting the cheerleaders out of the school in South Bentonville, I heard a slight shuffle and saw Amy easing the door open. Bless her, she had a cup of coffee in one hand and her M4 carbine in the other. She still looked sleepy, but I caught her eyes sweeping the front yard and out into the distance.

She moved to sit in one of the other chairs, but I patted my leg—my left leg and on the side away from my injury—and Amy gave me a suspicious grin. Still, she came over and gently lowered herself to a perch on my leg and leaned back into my lap. I gave her a hug and kissed the side of her neck, ignoring the strange look I received from my father.

As I wrapped up the broad description of how the battle there solidified our position with the local National Guard unit, Amy leaned back and whispered something I barely caught. “Tell him about the stairs,” she said softly.

I looked up, my eyes shifting back and forth between the two of them. Amy gave me a nervous smile, but my father was clearly curious what I was leaving out.

“Amy…” I began, embarrassed. I knew why Amy mentioned this. I still had nightmares about that fight. Others, too, like that insane brawl at the Big Mac, but not as often as the stairs haunted my dreams.

Hell, I think I killed more men defending the back fence at the armory, but that never seemed to bother me. Maybe it was because of how inept the attackers had been, just focusing on trying to get through the concertina wire while I quickly whittled down their numbers. I refer to that action sometimes as a turkey shoot, and some of the soldiers at the armory were surprised at how so few of us managed to hold off so many. I never bothered to explain that against trained troops, we likely would have had our asses handed to us. No need.

My fiancé turned to me, her face set in a hard frown. “Luke, I can’t…cannot tell you how many times you’ve woken from a cold sweat, thrashing around, and all because of that one fight. I know it was bad. I talked to Conners, you know. But maybe talking about it to someone like your dad, someone who’s been there like you have, could help. Will you at least try, baby?”

The concern was clear in her words, and her expression.

“For you, honey, I’ll try. Not now, though. I still got to get through telling about the whole mess in Oklahoma before the rest of the house gets up.”

Of course, I was scarcely finished with the ambush that cost Private Grady his life before the door swung open yet again; out came the rest of my crew: Lori, Summer, Scott, and Helena. Fortunately, Connie, Helena’s mom, must have been keeping the youngest two of our group, Kevin and Rachel, inside for the time being. Alex, having been on guard duty for a good chunk of the night, was still dead to the world.

They heard the last of my tale, and I felt a moment of worry over what might come from these four. Unfortunately, I didn’t have long to wait.

I quickly got everything out about the battle for Big Mac and the fight at the armory, two actions where I heaped praise on all three ladies for how they handled themselves. I also made it clear, without saying so, that Amy and Lori both walked away from that second gunfight only after taking lives. That wasn’t something to brag about, but I figured my dad needed to know. These two young women not only had a little training, but also the guts and determination to use that training to save all our lives.

Despite their age and gender, Amy and Lori were blooded veterans. Not real experienced, but they had proven willing to follow orders and pull the trigger when necessary. I knew this would mean one or both would likely end up standing guard duty as a result, but as I’d mentioned, my father needed to be made aware of their value. That was the new reality again.

The ranch was undermanned, and even adding two or three more shooters to the mix could help. Scott, too, was now considered a veteran fighter from his efforts to drive off the neighbors who slaughtered his parents, as well as in our later actions. I tried to count up the number of reliable sentries they could field before we arrived, but the number seemed too low.

Grandpa, Dad, Uncle Billy, Isaac, Alex, Mike and maybe some of the wives would be the pool of watch standers. Certainly Beth Elkins, Mike’s wife. She was a natural shot and cool under pressure, at least as far as I’d ever seen. That still left them way short. And Grandpa was gone. No wonder they were so tired. Or that they only had one person standing watch at a time at night.

“So ya’ll got through all that without a scratch? Hard to imagine,” my father murmured. “And this was before you got shot?”

I nodded. “Right before. We headed out as soon as possible after we made the armory to see about Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.”

I wanted to lay this out carefully, but Lori was having none of it. She interrupted and pointed a finger at me when I tried to protest. Then, to my horror, the girls started telling their side of that nightmare trip to Hybernia Court.