Edge of Disaster [Book 2] Read online

  Edge of Disaster

  An EMP Post-Apocalyptic Survival Prepper Series

  Alex Gunwick

  Copyright © 2017 by Alex Gunwick

  Cover Design by Jacqueline Sweet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  1

  Ten days after the first nuclear bombs dropped on America, Luke stood on a freeway overpass overlooking the Inland Empire. So far, his harrowing trip from San Jose, California had included several shootouts, an ambush by a militia, a hundred-mile trek along the Pacific Crest Trail, and a bear attack.

  War-torn and ready to get to his family in Orange County, he adjusted the straps on his Get Home Bag. His head snapped up as the distant pop-pop-pop of a semi-automatic rifle punctured the air. Black smoke billowed up from an industrial area, while the remnants of other fires released wispy, gray tendrils into the sky.

  The scent of death hung over the city. After leaving the Pacific Crest Trail, he’d hiked alongside Highway 15 past abandoned cars on the Cajon Pass. As he’d searched the bullet-ridden vehicles, he’d encountered more dead bodies than he’d ever seen during his deployment in Afghanistan.

  He wiped the back of his hand across his brow. A densely populated series of cities were all that stood between him and his family. He held no illusion that the rest of his trip home would be any easier than the first ten days, but determination propelled him forward.

  Twenty miles. He only had to walk twenty miles today. After the hell he’d been through, he could only focus on one day at a time. Today, twenty miles. Tomorrow, another twenty. And God willing, he’d be home at the end of the third day.

  As he hiked down the overpass, he pulled a SIG Sauer P938 out of his pocket. After checking that it was cocked and locked and the safety was on, he slid it back in the front pocket of his jeans. He continued to the end of the off-ramp, carefully scanning for threats.

  Upon reaching the bottom, he jogged across the street and took cover behind a large electrical box. Ten yards down the street, a kid kicked a soccer ball across the shriveled remnants of a brown lawn. A dilapidated single-story house sagged under the weight of an apocalyptic orange sky.

  He continued down the street. As he passed the kid, the worn face of an older man appeared behind the screen door. He held a shotgun at his side. Luke focused his peripheral vision on the man. If the shotgun so much as twitched, Luke would draw on him.

  This wasn’t the same world he’d left a week ago. This wasn’t a world of business meetings and kids’ soccer games. It was a world without rule of law. A world without mercy. A world without hope. And somehow, he had to survive it.

  When he reached the end of the block, he risked a backward glance. The man stood on the front lawn. He held the shotgun in one hand, and his son’s hand in the other. Luke’s jaw twitched. He would have given anything to be able to hold his own son’s hand. He couldn’t do a damn thing to keep his family safe until he reached them. The weight of protecting their children rested solely on his wife Liz’s shoulders. She was more than capable of handling herself, but he still worried.

  Please let them be safe.

  Luke continued through the neighborhood. The only signs of life came from the flutter of curtains as people peeked out. Some had broken windows. Others were missing doors. As he passed the smoldering remains of another home, the stench of rotting corpses violated his lungs.

  He picked up his pace, jogging past more homes until he reached the intersection of a main road. Ten yards down on the right, several people carrying baseball bats entered the shattered glass doors of a twenty-four-hour sandwich shop. Next to it, an electronics store sat empty. Several broken televisions lay scattered in pieces across the parking lot.

  As he continued through the city, he passed another group of people standing around a barbecue in someone’s driveway. A woman in a tattered tropical patterned muumuu stirred a pot of pinto beans. She glared as he passed. Several men turned to track Luke’s progression. He hurried on, not wanting to start trouble over a meager meal. He still had several energy bars and two bottles of water in his pack, so he wouldn’t have to worry about food until tomorrow.

  On the next block, a group of elderly people lay sprawled across a front porch. Flies swarmed their bodies. He gagged and pulled his shirt up to cover his nose. He’d expected things to be bad, but this…this looked like Baghdad circa 1991. For a moment, he was right back in the heat of battle. Shells exploding all around him. The blast of anti-aircraft fire arcing through the sky.

  He staggered along the sidewalk, shaking his head to clear the images. He didn’t go back to that place often, but when he did, his whole body shook as if he was still under fire. As his vision narrowed, he sucked in a breath and held it. He released it as a long, audible whoosh. His fists unclenched, his vision returned, and the spectral gunshots vanished, only to be replaced by the real thing.

  A burst of automatic gunfire cut through the silence. Luke whipped out his gun and jogged to the nearest house to take cover.

  A second blast of gunshots came from one block over. Several men sporting blue bandanas retreated onto the far end of the street. Luke sank back into the shadows. With any luck, they’d pass him by without a glance. He didn’t shy away from danger, but ammo was precious and he couldn’t afford to waste a single shot.

  The men ran down the street. In addition to baggy jeans, they wore bright white tennis shoes. Clearly brand new. Probably stolen.

  Several men were shirtless. “MS 13” tattoos in an Old English font covered their chests. Gangbangers. Members of Mara Salvatrucha, an international street gang that originated in LA in the 1980s. The “13” meant they were aligned with the Mexican Mafia—not people he wanted to fuck with. One of his old SEAL buddies had done some deep cover work with the Riverside PD gang unit. He almost didn’t live to testify against them.

  As the men jogged past his hiding place on a porch, the youngest of the group turned and looked right at Luke. A cold fissure of fear jolted down his spine. The gangbanger lifted a finger to his neck then sliced it across as if he were slitting his throat.

  Luke got the message loud and clear. After the men disappeared around the corner, he checked to make sure whoever they’d been shooting at wasn’t in pursuit. He couldn’t risk getting caught in the crossfire.

  With the road clear in both directions, he ran to the corner and peeked around it. The gang had moved on to the next block. He headed in the opposite direction toward an industrial area. It would be less populated and presumably safer.

  And for a while
it was.

  The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Instead of turning to look back, he glanced at the side mirror on a car as he walked past. He instantly recognized the blue bandanas. His heart thudded as adrenaline flooded his system.

  If he ran, they’d chase him, and he wasn’t convinced he could outrun every member of the group. He could try to take cover and shoot at them, but he only had two magazines with seven rounds each. So far, he hadn’t been able to locate additional ammo for his SIG.

  He slowly moved his hand toward the butt of his gun. If he needed to draw, he wanted to be ready.

  As he rounded the corner of a large warehouse, he broke into a run. He turned another corner, almost twisting his knee in the process. If he went down, it would be over before it started.

  His knee screamed, but he ignored it. The pain would only get worse if they put a round in him. He needed to buy time, so when he reached the next vacant car, he dashed behind it and whipped out his gun. His finger curled around the trigger. He squeezed off two shots, hitting one man in the gut and the other between the eyes. Both went down. The others took cover inside a doorway.

  Luke fired another shot, sending them cowering into the alcove. With only seconds to spare, he ran toward an alleyway. Bullets punched into the stucco exterior of the warehouse, missing him by less than a foot. At least they were terrible shots.

  He rushed past piles of rolled-up, plastic-wrapped carpets. Several steel machines clogged the space, leaving only a narrow walkway. Metal catwalks crossed the center of the second floor. He bounded up a staircase on the right side of the building. As he moved to hide behind a pile of cardboard boxes, shouts rose up from below. They’d reached the warehouse, and he had nowhere else to go.

  The men stalking Luke fanned out through the warehouse. From his hiding spot behind towering cardboard boxes, Luke tracked their movements. So far they hadn’t ventured up the stairs, but it was only a matter of time. He counted eight men total. Down to only eleven rounds, he had to make every shot count. But was shooting his way out the best option? Maybe there was another way out.

  Careful not to make a sound, he headed deeper into the second floor. Several metal lockers lined one wall. If he’d been alone, he would have searched them for anything useful. He made a mental note of them in case he had the chance to double back.

  He found a long hallway just beyond the lockers. After following it for several yards, he spotted doors to a freight elevator. With the electricity out, he couldn’t call it, but it offered up an unexpected escape route. He just needed something he could use to pry the doors open.

  The sharp clatter of metal on cement reverberated down the hall. He whipped toward the sound. He pointed the gun downrange and scanned for threats.

  Nothing.

  The sound probably came from downstairs, but he couldn’t waste any more time. He quickly walked farther down the hall. Several closed doors lined the walls. He opened the first door. Inside, he found a breakroom with an intact vending machine. Tables and chairs crowded the floor. He grabbed one chair and flipped it over. He unscrewed the leg and inspected it. The solid metal center was perfect.

  Before darting back into the hall, he paused and listened. Eerie silence greeted him. He considered waiting in the room. Maybe they were gone. If they were lazy enough, maybe they’d given up after failing to locate him on the ground floor.

  But was waiting worth the risk? If they did breach the second floor, he’d be a sitting duck. No, it was always better to take action than to wait around and hope for the best. In a world filled with lawless thugs, he had to stay on the offensive as much as possible. Maintaining a defensive position could get him killed if they trapped him. They certainly outgunned him in terms of ammo, a situation he’d have to rectify sooner than later.

  He exited the room. As he walked down the hall, he mentally planned his escape. Get into the elevator shaft, slide down the cables, get into the elevator, then get the hell out of the warehouse. It would all come down to timing. If he made too much noise opening the doors, he’d be dead. If he pried open the doors on the ground floor too soon—dead.

  When he reached the elevator, he heard the first set of steps coming up the stairs. With little time to waste, he used the metal table leg to pry open the elevator doors. A gaping void greeted him. He kicked himself for forgetting to grab a flashlight. But before he could reach for one, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  With only seconds to spare, he leapt into the elevator shaft and grabbed a thick cable. The doors slid closed. Hand under hand, he descended until his feet touched the top of the freight elevator. He dropped to his knees and felt around the top of the elevator, trying to locate a lock or latch.

  His fingers found a raised handle. He cracked it and slowly opened the roof. When the unoiled hinges squeaked, he froze for a second before continuing to flip it over. He lowered himself into the elevator, leaving the roof open in case he needed to make a hasty retreat.

  Stale cigarette smoke clung to the padded walls. Suffocating air crushed his lungs. The hot, airless coffin closed in on every side. Absolute darkness set his imagination on fire. Although he knew he was alone in the elevator, every terrifying horror film he’d ever watched flashed through his mind. He half-expected to hear a demonic child’s laughter, or feel the brush of ghostly fingers down his spine.

  Hysteria edged out reason. He set the table leg on the floor and took a step forward. He didn’t know which side held the door. As he felt along the warm metal, his desperation increased. He fumbled across two walls before finding the control panel. In his haste, he brushed against a button. A shrill ring blasted through the elevator.

  Shit! The emergency alarm must have a battery backup.

  He sprang into action, tearing open the doors with the chair leg. As he burst into the hall, light from a nearby window blinded him. He squinted and ran toward an emergency exit door.

  On the second floor, men shouted and rushed back to the stairs. Their shoes pounded on the metal as they raced toward the first floor. One man reached the bottom and immediately opened fire. A bullet ricocheted off the wall to his right. Another hit to his left.

  Just steps from the door, a sudden, searing pain burned across his thigh. He stumbled but managed to reach the door while the thug reloaded. Luke shoved through the exit door and ran into an alleyway. He turned a corner and kept running.

  After a series of zigzags, his lungs burned. A side stitch stole his breath. He had to slow down, but not yet. Not until he was sure they weren’t behind him.

  He skated around a dumpster and ran across a six-lane road. When he reached the other side, he risked a glance back. No one pursued him. He’d lost them somewhere in the industrial maze. Or so he hoped.

  Instead of waiting around to find out, he disappeared behind a dry-cleaning store. He tested the back door. Locked.

  He continued down the alley. When he emerged on the other side, he spotted a library. They’d never expect to find him there.

  Seconds later, he tried the front door of the library. Locked. He circled around back and found that door locked too. He grabbed a large rock off the ground and used it to smash a hole in the window next to the back door. He pounded the glass out of the window seal. After tossing his bag inside, he vaulted into the library.

  With his gun at the ready, he shouldered his bag and began to sweep the aisles. Towering shelves stuffed with books blocked his line of sight. He couldn’t see into the next aisle, so he proceeded with extreme caution. Each unexplored row kicked his heartbeat up another notch. His thigh burned, but he ignored the pain.

  The library was comprised of five rooms. After clearing the main bookshelf area, he checked the first office and found it empty. A single computer sat on a nondescript desk. A stack of papers and several files were neatly lined up in a row. The filing cabinet behind the desk had seen better days. He’d check it out later.

  As he moved on to the next room, his leg buckled. He went down, crushing his fingers
between the gun and the worn carpet. He crawled into the second room. Several chairs and tables were clustered together. A row of cabinets lined one wall. A chalkboard covered another. It looked like a classroom. Maybe the library held special classes here?

  He pulled himself into the room and pushed the door closed. He sank back against the wall. After catching his breath, he poked at the hole in his jeans. Sticky blood coated his fingers. He unbuckled his belt and pulled off his pants. The angry red slash along his thigh burned with every motion.

  “Dammit.”

  As he probed for a bullet, hot pokers of fire burned down his thigh. He gritted his teeth against the pain. When he didn’t find a bullet, he slumped back against the wall. Thank God for small favors.

  He dragged his pack closer. After retrieving the medical kit, he opened it and laid the contents on top of his pants. He pulled a bottle of water out of his bag along with a packet of bath wipes. It wasn’t the most sanitary option, but he didn’t have the luxury of running water. He took a breath then blew it out as he scrubbed at the wound. If any debris got caught in it, he’d be in a world of trouble. He couldn’t treat a massive infection. And he doubted he could walk into a hospital and expect to get any level of care, not when the whole world had gone to shit.

  The sting of the soap passed as he rinsed his leg. He applied an antibiotic ointment then used sterile gauze to cover the wound. He’d have to keep an eye on it and change the dressing when it soaked through, but most of the bleeding had already stopped.

  As he drank what was left of the water in the bottle, he relaxed against the wall. He was safe for now. Libraries weren’t high on the list of places to loot. It looked like this place had been passed over already, so he didn’t expect trouble. But it never hurt to stay alert.