Edge of Valor: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller(89)

She planned to eradicate every fake-soldier Syndicate scumbag that she could.

The Syndicate was like a wart on the butt of the apocalypse. They were evil personified. Madness and destruction and death.

“No pressure,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just saving the world over here. Don’t mind us.”

“What?” Jonas asked.

“Never mind.”

Bishop’s radio beeped. “This is Echo Three,” a female voice said. “We have movement. Dozens of trucks and military vehicles approaching via Old 31. Ten miles out.”

A terrible anticipation gripped her. Her tongue tasted coppery. Her heart beat so loud, it was difficult to hear anything beyond the roar of her pulse.

Endless minutes passed.

The second scout radioed in. “Attack imminent. Five miles to intercept.”

And then she could hear it. The low buzz like a thousand bees. A growing, intensifying rumble like a great beast waking beneath the earth, roaring as it reared its head to devour them.

Everything slowed. Her vision narrowed and crystalized.

Eyes straining, she peered into the darkness.

A pair of headlights appeared in the distance. Two tiny pinpricks of light.

And then another. And another. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Even more.

They blurred together, amplifying and expanding until it felt like a giant searchlight pinning her in place.

Poe was coming.





66





Liam





Day One Hundred and Fifteen





“How many hostiles?” Liam asked in a terse voice.

He was clad in nothing but his underwear, bruised, beaten, and freezing cold. None of it mattered. He was absolutely focused.

“At least seven in the elevator alcove outside the kitchen,” Luther said. “I don’t see anyone in the kitchen itself, but I can’t be certain. The guardsmen are gone. It’s the General’s contractors we have to worry about.”

“Exits?”

“The main one straight ahead. A service entrance to the west. Ah, at our three o’clock. They’ll use it to flank us. But we’re not receiving fire from that direction yet. I don’t see any movement.”

Liam grabbed a spare M4 from a dead bodyguard, examined it—full magazine, locked and loaded—and slung it over his bare shoulder. “Then we need to get there first.”

Luther nodded.

Weapon in hand, Liam stacked up behind him. His thoughts crystallized. His senses bright and sharp, every synapse firing.

Luther knelt in the freezer doorway and fired on full-auto, suppressing the hostiles attempting to burst through the kitchen entrance. He bled off an entire magazine.

Slugs punched through drywall, peppering the metal shelving and cabinets.

A scream as a man was hit.

The hostiles ducked for cover, their return fire going spotty.

Time to move.

Liam limped past Luther into the kitchen, slicing the pie as he went. Cautiously, he stepped over several bodies. The floor beneath them slick with blood.

It was like slogging through molasses. His legs dragged, full of cement. His arms made of lead. His hands trembled as he pressed the carbine to his shoulder.

Luther moved past the threshold, entered the kitchen and swung left, weapon up. Clear.

Liam turned right. He took the corner and swept back to the center of the room. Clear.

At a crouch, they moved forward into the massive kitchen, past shelves and counters, sweeping back and forth. Heart in his throat, he checked left then right, scanning for threats.

The battery-operated lanterns had been knocked to the floor. The watery light reflected off steel, throwing wavering shapes and shadows. His mouth was bone-dry.

Rounds snapped past their heads.

Luther dove behind a stove the size of a steam engine. Liam flung himself after him.

They returned fire. Liam did a tactical reload, ejecting the not-quite-spent magazine and inserting the fresh one into the mag well. Luther lobbed a vicious volley at the bullet-riddled doorway.

A pause in the enemy fire as they reloaded spent magazines. Their opponents had to be running low.

Luther covered Liam as he scurried across several yards of open space. He crawled along a long counter and dove behind a massive refrigerator.

Pain hamstrung him. Every second felt like a minute, his movements slow and sluggish.

Liam checked the service door—now in sight ten yards to his left. He knelt, half turned, and provided cover fire as Luther bent double and sprinted toward him.

A stray round pinged off the top of the fridge.

Liam ducked—

“Behind you!” Luther shouted.

A sense of movement.

Two shadows burst from the service entrance to his left.

Liam dropped onto his back as rounds screamed over his head. Swinging the M4 around, finger already squeezing the trigger. He opened fire on the hostiles attempting to flank him.

The M4 stitched lead up their torsos. Spent brass clattered across the tile floor.

Blood sprayed from the first hostile’s throat. The second toppled but fired as he fell.

Slugs peppered the fridge inches from Liam’s face. Shrapnel shredded his cheek. An intense sting like a thousand needles piercing his flesh.

Alarmed, he climbed to his feet, scanning frantically. He scrambled for cover from the crossfire. They were being fired upon from at least two directions. Maybe three— Pop! Pop!