Rise of Chaos 4 Page 3

  ****

  Mason joined the team at the armory to gear up again. He hand-picked five additional men at the bunker who he trusted and sent for Diggles to be brought up, bound and gagged. They met back up at the north portal to find the flatbed and the M1 Abrams being gassed up and loaded with ammo. He sent Kalen with the three man tank crew as an additional gunner to man the .50 Cal. Everyone else was with him in the large flatbed to gather supplies. Diggles was tossed into the back of the truck with two additional guards to watch him.

  “I’m going to check these chains again on the truck, it’s full on winter in Virginia and I don’t want to get stuck. Stay in radio contact the whole way and don’t get too far ahead. Remember, there are no friendlies anymore. Kill fucking everything that moves out there,” Mason said to Boyd, the acting Tank Commander.

  The gate was raised out of the north portal and the team headed the eleven miles or so to the small Blue Ridge mountain town of Staunton, Virginia. The snow was deep and icy, causing the flatbed to slip and slide down Route 250. The tank was moving at about thirty miles an hour in front, without incident so far.

  “I wonder what’s going on, we’re almost there and I haven’t seen any feeders or signs of life,” Pualani said.

  “Maybe they’re buried in this blizzard we’re driving through,” Brody said.

  They entered the town and followed Richmond Ave down to the Wal-Mart. The snow had covered most of the deserted town in a white blanket and it almost looked inviting, Mason thought. As they pulled up to the entrance of the Wal-Mart, Mason radioed for the tank to make an entrance into the abandoned store.

  The heavily outfitted and armed tank went through the south wall of the store like a knife through soft butter. After making an entrance wide enough to get the flatbed through, Mason had the tank come back out and watch the perimeter. Mason jumped out of the truck and sent four teams of two into the store to gather supplies.

  “I’ll join you in a couple minutes; I have to take care of something first. Move fast, all that noise is going to attract them,” Mason said, walking over to the back of the truck and threw Diggles out into the snow face first.

  “Get your fucking worthless ass up and start walking,” Mason said to Diggles as he kicked him in the ribs to motivate him.

  Diggles was trying to talk but the gag was muffling his pleas. Once Mason had him about fifty yards out, he took off his gag and told him to kneel.

  “Why are you doin’ this to me? I didn’t do nuthin’ to you. You just can’t kill me. Please I’m begging you… Please.”

  Mason walked behind the kneeling man and unsheathed his knife. In one quick motion he slit his bonds and told him to stand up.

  “I don’t ever want to see you again. Head as far away as you can from here and don’t come back,” Mason said, pulling out his Beretta and handing it to him. “I’ve seen enough death for three lifetimes.”

  Diggles accepted the pistol in shock, backed up a few steps and pointed it at Mason. “You fucking fool, you wanna play god…” He squeezed the trigger several times to the sound of a click.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? You think I’d give you a loaded weapon? I just wanted to give you a chance to live, and this played out exactly as I thought it would,” Mason said as he brought his knife into the stomach of the man he was trying to show mercy to.

  Diggles’s eyes opened wide with shock and he felt a searing pain in his stomach as he fell backwards onto the snow. Mason climbed on top of him and continued to stab him, ruthlessly, until he heard gunfire.

  His radio was coming to life with, “Contact, we have contact. Inside and outside.” Mason took his Beretta back from the dead man and loaded it as he ran back to the perimeter.

  The 120mm tank cannon was firing thunderously into the crowd of feeders coming down Richmond Ave towards them. The snow was hindering them, but they kept methodically slipping and sliding down the icy street in pursuit of their meal. The main turret of the Abrams fired another deafening blast and its explosive round hit directly into the herd. Limbs and blood mixed with the fresh white powder of the snow came down like rain. Kalen opened the main hatch and opened fire with the .50 Cal into the horde of repulsive, mangled zombie-like creatures. The feeders fell en masse but there were hundreds or maybe even thousands, Mason thought. He ran into the tank sized hole of the Wal-Mart to check on the progress of the group gathering supplies.

  Pualani almost shot Mason in the head as he ran up behind her to assess the situation. She and Luanne were holding off the turned Wal-Mart customers with their Berettas while the other men finished loading the truck.

  “Mason, we need to get outta here. This place is full of fucking feeders,” Pualani said as she reloaded her pistol.

  “I was thinking the same thing, looks like we got a full load of supplies,” Mason said, firing his MP5 into ten or so feeders. He got on his radio to Boyd and told him to move out and make a hole. “Everyone load up, we’re following the tank outta here,” he said, motioning for Pualani to get in the cab and drive.

  “Brody, fall back, goddamn it. You’re too close!” Mason shouted.

  Brody was well into the fray, slaughtering the slow, bloodthirsty creatures like he was dancing with death. He drove the point of his bayoneted sword arm into the face of a snarling, blond haired woman, whose lips had been eaten away. He was firing his Beretta wildly at the pack of feeders coming dangerously close to him. Luanne ran up next to him with a twelve gauge and cleared the immediate threat, knocking down feeders like bowling pins. She grabbed Brody by the scruff of his neck and shouted, “You’re going to get yourself killed you little asshole! Come with me now.”

  Brody reluctantly agreed as they jumped onto the back of the truck and fired at the feeders from a safe distance. Mason was trying to help one of the men he brought from the bunker, but it was too late. He had been horribly bitten in the neck and was in the process of tuning into a feeder when Mason ended him with a bullet to his brain.

  Mason had already lost two of the inexperienced resistance members he had brought with him. The other man, who was really only a nineteen year old kid, had fired his weapon without any sort of trigger discipline and jammed his weapon when he tried to hastily reload it. It was a fatal mistake that cost him his humanity as he was overrun and cannibalized by the mob of vicious death dealing feeders, waiting for an opportunity to get hold of his flesh.

  Mason got on the radio to the tank commander and started screaming at him to move that fucking tank forward.

  “We can’t move until we clear these feeders massing up in front of us. The driver’s optics are blocked and he can’t see where he’s going,” Tank Commander Boyd said back to him over the radio.

  “Tell him to open the driver’s hatch and just start moving, we’re about to get overrun. I don’t give a fuck what direction he goes in. Move that fucking tank now!” Mason yelled to him over the radio.

  Kalen came inside from the main firing hatch and saw the tank crew frozen with fear. He yanked the paralyzed man out of the driver’s hole and hopped in. Clueless about how to drive a tank, he jerked the throttle forward and the rattle of steel threads heralded the egress of the sixty-five ton tank.

  “You… Whatever the fuck your name is... Get on that .50 Cal topside—now!” Kalen shouted, pointing to Boyd.

  “No way, those things are fucking everywhere. I’m not going up there,” Boyd replied.

  “I swear to fucking god, if you don’t open that hatch and start clearing a path for us outta here, I’ll shoot you myself in this fucking tank,” Kalen said, pointing his pistol at the man’s head.

  Boyd opened the commander’s hatch and racked the .50 Cal M2HB. He started firing wildly and the tank lurched forward squashing feeders’ heads like rotten pumpkins. Kalen was shouting at the gunner to fire the main gun. A cloud of smoke engulfed the street as the 120mm round exploded into the thousands of feeders that were now blocking their path.

  The convoy slowly and painstakingly made it
s way through the small Virginia town of Staunton. The feeders were no match for the M1 Abrams tank. The infected feeders bounced off the armored skirt of the tank and were crushed under the heavy steel tracks. The crunch of bone and the murderous howling of the snow-covered creatures filled the chilly night air.

  As the two vehicles cleared the town and made it back onto Route 250, Pualani breathed a sigh of relief. “That was way too close, Mason,” she said.

  “I know. I was expecting a fight, but nothing like that. I’m glad that our team is still intact and that you’re ok,” he said, putting his gloved hand on the thigh of her anti-bite suit.

  “You smell like shit and you’re covered in blood, bone and snow,” she said, laughing.

  “I just love how you’re so skilled at pointing out the obvious. I didn’t get a chance to check the back of the truck yet to see what we got. I hope you didn’t load it with cat food again.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him and said, “No cat food this time. There is a shit load of rice, flour and water back there. It’s probably all shot up though, but I think we can still salvage most of it. I did make sure we cleaned out all of the ammo and rifles from the sports department. I’d rather have bullets than food these days.”

  “Amen,” he said.

  “What happened to Diggles?” she asked.

  “He won’t be joining us—ever again,” Mason said, leaning back and trying to close his eyes.

  “Oh… Happy New Year, by the way,” Pualani said, squeezing Mason’s hand.

  “How do you even know what day it is anymore, much less what year it is?”

  “I’m a woman, these things come naturally to me.”

  “Well, what year is it then?”

  “It’s year 3.”

  “Year 3? Aren’t you missing a couple of thousand more years in your calculations there, Einstein?”

  “You’re such a dickhead sometimes. It’s been three years since the Annihilation epidemic started and the world as we know it ended. It’s been three years since the rise of chaos.”

  ****

  They rode in silence for the remainder of the trip back to the bunker. As they followed the tank towards the north portal entrance they noticed several new faces and three SH-60 Seahawk helicopters on the pad.

  “Looks like our ride is already here and waiting for us,” Mason said.

  “Are we ever going to get a mother fucking chance to rest? I mean Jesus Christ. I just want to take a nice hot bath and eat something that’s not cat food, before we go on our next suicide mission,” Pualani said in a tirade.

  Mason looked at her for a long second and cracked a sarcastic smile, before he hopped out of the flatbed and radioed to the tank to hold its position.

  Master Chief was waiting for them at the entrance. Mason noticed he was in deep conversation with another man with bright silver hair. As he approached the two men, Master Chief turned to greet Mason with an outstretched hand and a big smile.

  “I see you made it back alive from your grocery shopping expedition. “

  “Yup… Barely. And I thought Wal-Mart was hell before the epidemic.”

  Master Chief chuckled as he turned to the other man and said, “I’d like to introduce you to Mason Briggs and his Strike Force Team, Foxtrot.”

  “Hello, Mason. My name is Commander Kelly and I’ve heard some impressive stories about you and your team.”

  “Eh… Thank you, sir,” Mason said. “We do our part to keep the resistance alive and fighting. You’re Commander Kelly from the AR in Baltimore? The Commander In Chief of the East Coast resistance forces?”

  “Yes… As you know, we are forming up for the offensive against the League of Islam in the next few days, and I’m going to personally escort you and your team to Norfolk and then Savannah.”

  “Ok great. The more the merrier. So you and Master Chief will be with us until Savannah, when we move on the space center, or the old NASA, I mean.”

  “We’ve decided that Master Chief is needed to stay in the bunker and hold down the fort, so to speak. I will be with you and your team until Savannah. I’m going to lead the attack on Florida or—as those fucking Muslim bastards call it—The new Jerusalem.”

  “Mason, I know your team is tired and you need to rest, but we’ve gotten Intel that Abu Hadi will be at the space center in Cape Canaveral. If we can destroy the signal being sent to the satellite that they’re using and kill Abu Hadi in the process, we can drive these sons of bitches into the Atlantic.”

  “So the plan is to destroy NASA and kill Abu Hadi. Once the satellite signal is lost the super feeders should revert to just being flesh eating cannibals, and slaughter the League of Islam’s soldiers for us. “

  “In a nutshell, yes. There are more details that I’ll fill you in on as we move forward. I’d like to be in the air at 0600. That gives you and your team four hours to rest, re-arm and recuperate. Sound like a plan?”

  “Yes, I’ll brief my team. And we’ll meet at the Seahawks at 0600,” Mason said, shaking Commander Kelly’s hand.

  Mason and Master Chief spent the next few hours personally supervising the resistance members unload and put away the supplies from the Wal-Mart raid. He sent his team to the barracks to get some rest before they mustered again in less than four hours.

  “This was a good haul, Mason, we can feed the bunker for several months on the rice and flour alone. “

  “It didn’t come easy or cheap. We lost three men from the bunker; I had to put one down myself. He was just a stupid fucking kid that needed more training before being thrown into a situation like that. But he was brave and he fought well until…” Mason said, sadly.

  “I know, Mason, this new chaotic world is difficult for anyone to get accustomed to. We just need to stick together and watch each other’s backs. If we can pull this offensive off in Florida and take out their signal, we can win this war and start the reconstruction.”

  “There’s a lot of if’s there. And we’ll be in for a long road and one hell of a fight, but I’m going to see this through to the end—no matter what.”

  ****

  Copyright © 2013 by Griffin Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Episode 5

  The breathtaking season 1 finale of Rise of Chaos is here.

  The American resistance makes a last ditch effort to take back the former state of Florida, now known as the New Jerusalem.

  Join Mason and Strike Force Foxtrot as they battle Abu Hadi and his League of Islam invaders. They've found a way to control the zombie like super feeders, through a satellite signal from the former Kennedy Space Center. Walking through Hell is an all-out battle for the survival of the world as we know it.

  Now available on Amazon here

  Season 1 (All five Episodes)

  Run like hell...

  The United States as we know it has just collapsed. It all started after the release of "Annihilation", a synthetic designer drug that was marketed as a perfectly legal high. This drug turned its unsuspecting users into "feeders." (It causes imminent death and then re-animation into a zombie like state.)

  Our enemies around the world have witnessed the destruction. They have risen up in the Middle East, and formed the League of Islam. They believe this zombie like plague is a sign from the prophet Mohammed to colonize the world. And those infected are being punished by Allah for being an Infidel.

  This Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian series of episodes, follows the adventures of Mason Briggs, and a group of survivors that he meets and loses along the way. Join Mason and his group as they discover Camp Freedom, kill feeders, hunt pirates, rescue his companions, and fight the i
nvasion of the League of Islam. All without getting killed, infected or captured.

  You'll be in for a sick, twisted adrenaline rush throughout this whole series.

  Now available on Amazon here.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Griffin Smith was born in New England, and is the misbegotten son of an accountant and a rock and roll singer. He's a traveler, writer, editor and has spent most of his life on the road and on the ocean. After being honorably discharged from the Navy in 2006, he has settled down in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He writes full time, and enjoys a wonderful life with his wife Lani and their Boston Terrier Lola.

  Connect with Me Online:

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/GSwriting

  Website: http://gswriting.com/

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