Nuclear Winter Series | Book 2 | Nuclear Winter Armageddon Page 13

  The four men huddled in front of the drop-off window. Thus far, none of them had the presence of mind to look up to notice the missing ceiling tiles.

  Peter readied his weapon. He had to remain disciplined.

  SMACK! SMACK!

  The sound of the countertop being broken apart with a sledgehammer filled the air. The kids from the food aisle apparently hadn’t left yet, by their shrieks and screams. They raced out the front door, leaving their snacks behind.

  “Put your back into it! Gimme that thing!”

  The intruders changed positions.

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

  This man was stronger, and soon debris was flying inward as the countertop succumbed to the pummeling of the sledgehammer. With smaller, precision blows, a hole was quickly opened up, and the men began to crawl through.

  Peter was not a murderer, but he was a killer. He’d taken another’s life in an effort to survive a terrorist attack. An hour after the shooting in Abu Dhabi, he’d vomited all over the interrogation table at the Abu Dhabi police headquarters. The realization had set in as to what he’d done. He wasn’t guilty or remorseful. He’d done what he had to. Yet that first kill still ran through his mind.

  He wondered if the second, third or even fifth would stick with him as well.

  Peter moved slowly to the far end of the pharmacy near the consultation room. He kept his gun pointed toward the counter, where the men were on their hands and knees. They crawled gingerly over the splinters without a sense of urgency. One after another, they made their way inside, helping the next man to his feet. Peter’s mind raced as he considered his options.

  Should he hold them at gunpoint, demanding they move to the back of the store while he escaped through the hole they’d made? Should he demand to see their weapons? Would they comply or open fire? Could he take them all in a gunfight? These guys looked streetwise. Real killers, unlike him.

  Until now.

  Once the four men were inside, Peter begged God’s forgiveness and began shooting. He fired four shots in rapid succession, striking each man in some part of their upper body. Two fell to their knees, and the other two attempted to dive for cover.

  Peter moved quickly toward them. He shot the two men in front of him again in the chest. They were the most vulnerable and easy to kill.

  A shot rang out and sailed past him, ricocheting off the steel grate. Peter instantly broke out into a sweat as he fell to his knees. He fired back wildly as he sent three rounds through the shelves of pharmaceuticals. One of the men groaned in pain.

  Peter lost track of how many shots he’d fired. In his nervous state of mind, he couldn’t remember how many rounds his nine-millimeter magazines held. He knew he only had a couple left. Peter had trained with his uncle on how to shoot his Springfield 1911. But he hadn’t learned how to act in a gunfight. He’d learned the hard way how to survive through his reactions in Abu Dhabi, but he’d not thought about things like ammo discipline and having multiple magazines with him to reload.

  He decided to bluff.

  “You’re next, buddy! You can live through this and have all the drugs you want. I don’t want the shit you’re after. But you gotta slide your gun out and hold your hands high.”

  “No way, asshole!”

  “I know you’re hit!” Peter shouted back. “I’ve already killed these two. You’re the only thing that stands between me and the door. I’m not gonna mess with you, understand?”

  The man didn’t say anything in response.

  Peter heard the sound of feet shuffling. He thought the man might be scooting along the floor. He lowered his body and crawled toward the two dead men.

  Neither had a gun in their hands because Peter had shot them before they could draw. He reached under the bloodied shirt of the first man, hoping to find the man’s weapon tucked in his waistband. He was apparently unarmed.

  Now you’re a murderer, Peter, he thought to himself.

  Peter slowly retreated to his original position. He heard the shuffling sound toward the back of the pharmacy. The man was wounded and acting like a trapped animal. He wasn’t to be trifled with, especially since Peter was down to a couple of bullets. He decided to take a chance.

  He rose to his knees and blindly felt around the counter where he’d stashed the insulin and antibiotics. He found the handles to both bags and transferred them to his left hand. Then, with his gun trained on the sound of the movement at the back of the pharmacy, he slowly retreated backwards through the opening created by the looters.

  As soon as he was beyond the counter, he rolled over toward Jackie’s position and breathed for the first time in more than a minute. Peter’s chest was heaving as he tried to calm himself and listen for his adversary to emerge from the pharmacy. Once he’d regained his composure, and satisfied the man wasn’t pursuing him, Peter rose to his feet and made his way into the hair products section.

  “Jackie! Let’s go!”

  There was no answer.

  Peter dropped the bags to the carpeted floor and gripped his pistol with both hands. He let the barrel lead the way toward the far wall of the store. He didn’t want to call out her name again in case the men had someone else with them.

  Aisle by aisle, Peter inched up to the end cap of the display shelves and then revealed himself, ready to shoot. Each time, nobody materialized. At the last aisle, he glanced to his left at a tall L’Oreal display and then down the aisle.

  Still nothing.

  He took a chance. “Jackie!”

  He sensed movement. He swung around and pointed his weapon at the display. It moved slightly, so Peter crouched into a shooting position.

  “Peter, here I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sunday, October 27

  Driftwood Key

  “Everything seems odd, doesn’t it?” asked Hank as Mike and Jessica joined him for a breakfast of eggs and fish. Phoebe had warned everyone that their meals would begin to become unexciting and simple. There were plenty of fish in the sea, she’d quipped. Then she reminded them that their regular fish diet would be coupled with perishables in case the power went out permanently.

  “That’s an understatement, Hank,” said Mike, laughing. “What was your first clue?”

  “No, you know what I mean. I had a routine that I’d lived by for years and years. Guests came and went. There were regular chores to do, and then sometimes, we’d have something out of the ordinary to break up the monotony.”

  “I’ll say this,” said Jessica with a mouthful of food. She pointed her fork toward the main highway. “Out there, those partying fools haven’t missed a beat. It’s the darndest thing. They all agree it’s the end of the world as we know it. What they disagree on is what to do about it.”

  Mike shook his head and finished his meal. “We’ve really got our hands full, Hank. I told Jess that we’re surrounded by four different groups. There are the locals, like us, who’re kinda adopting a hunker-down-and-see-what-happens-next approach.

  “Then you got the inbound tourists, who, by the way, babe, we’re gonna shut out starting this afternoon.”

  Jessica leaned back in her chair. “They’re cutting off the island?”

  Mike nodded. “Outbound only unless they can provide proof of residency such as a driver’s license or a deed.”

  “Wow, that’s big,” said Jessica.

  “The Conch Republic rises from the ashes,” added Hank with a smile.

  Mike explained, “Well, we’ve caught bits and pieces on the news of things Hank’s already learned from the Ag secretary and Peter. Hell, we can see and feel it for ourselves. It’s getting colder. A little bit at a time, but noticeable.”

  Jessica nodded in agreement. “The haze started before the bombs dropped here. It’s a lot worse than Thursday.”

  “People in the southeast who weren’t impacted by the EMP or the blackouts began to drive south as the news media frightened everyone with this nuclear winter thing,” said Mike. “The consensus
seems to be that the best place to be in America is the southernmost point—Key West.”

  “Just where the hell do they expect to stay?” asked Hank.

  “Wherever, apparently,” Mike replied. “If they run out of gas, they take up residency off the side of the road and use their car as a temporary shelter. They’re offering outrageous sums of money to hotel owners to let them stay there. All cash transactions. If they don’t have money, they’re breaking into any structure they can find. Hell, the owner of the Marathon boatyard ran off several families who pried open yachts and settled in for the night.”

  Hank asked a logical question. “Okay, so we’ve all got our passports from the Conch Republic and have sworn allegiance and all of that. Big deal. But can Monroe County legally cut itself off from the rest of the state? The whole country for that matter.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” replied Mike. “The sheriff radioed me this morning and told us to report to the Key Largo Fire Department at Reef Drive. We’re gonna close off the access and send people back up north.”

  “What if they refuse?” asked Jessica. “We let nonviolents out of jail yesterday.”

  Mike shrugged. “Again, I don’t know, but I will say this. It’s absolutely necessary. The other tourists who remained in the Keys are causing a helluva problem. They’re almost lawless. They stay drunk. They tear shit up. They know there aren’t enough cops to stop them. It’s just a matter of time before the locals start taking the law into their own hands.”

  “Where are the hotspots?” asked Hank.

  “Key West and Key Largo,” replied Jessica.

  Mike added, “I’m speculating now, but if it were me, I’d close off the Keys and stop the bleeding, so to speak. Then we’d systematically throw out everyone who doesn’t belong here.”

  Hank scowled. “That’s kinda harsh, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Mike shot back. “It’s not that different from what you had to do here.”

  “I was giving those people a head start based upon a hunch,” argued Hank. “If they got stuck here, we wouldn’t be able to feed them.”

  “Same thing out there,” countered Mike. “The grocery stores are closed, not because of the brownouts, but because they’re empty. When I say empty, I’m talking about everything. Publix maintained its normal pricing, and they were emptied first. The C-Stores and mom-and-pops jacked their prices up, and they still sold virtually everything in sight. Hell, twenty-pound bags of ice were goin’ for a hundred bucks.”

  Hank didn’t respond. He was pensive as he thought about the fate of those he’d sent home. He hoped he did the right thing.

  “We need to get going,” said Jessica, taking advantage of the pause in the conversation. It wasn’t heated between the two brothers, but it certainly could’ve headed that way if their difference of opinion became an argument.

  Hank cleared the table as the two sheriff’s department employees headed out for the day. Jimmy and Sonny were tending to the hydroponics and greenhouses. Hank intended to cover any of the machinery used on Driftwood Key with a tarp or at least plastic sheeting to shield it from the smoky air.

  When he entered the kitchen, Phoebe was in the middle of a project.

  “You look like a chemist,” he said with a chuckle. “What are you up to?”

  “While I have power, I’m working up several batches of essential oils that we might need.”

  “Does it have to do with one of your conch concoctions?” asked Hank jokingly. Phoebe had been infusing conch, supposedly a natural aphrodisiac, into Hank’s morning power shakes. Especially when there were lady guests staying at the inn.

  “No, but I think you’ve forgotten that your ancestors were big believers in its natural benefits, like iron, calcium, and vitamins E and B12.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So what are you working on?”

  “Mr. Hank, sometimes you have to do things that you never imagined you’d need to do, much less use,” she replied. She placed her hand on a book with recipes for using essential oils and spun it around for Hank to see. “I’m making this recipe for radiation exposure damage. Did you know many cancer patients who are required to have radiation therapy use antioxidants and essential oils to minimize the damage to their skin and organs?”

  Hank flinched at the mention of the C-word, cancer. His wife, Megan, had died of breast cancer eight years prior. He didn’t respond, and Phoebe noticed his reaction, so she continued.

  “She didn’t want you to know about how much pain she was in, Mr. Hank. I helped her through it the best I could using this recipe.” She paused to pick up a bronze glass medicine dropper bottle and handed it to Hank. It was labeled QuadShield.

  “What is QuadShield?” he asked.

  “It’s a brand of essential oils that I can recreate on my own with this recipe. It has a blend of Melrose and citrus oils like lemon and orange. When you take it with vitamin C, which we bought before, you know, the bombs, plus a medicine like Megan’s thyroid capsules, your body can fight off the effects of the radiation.”

  “I’m sure none of her medicine is still around,” said Hank.

  “True, but there are natural alternatives like bananas, which are rich in potassium, and this.” She reached for a four-pound box of Morton iodized table salt. She refilled the salt shakers in the bar and dining room with it.

  “Will that work?” Hank asked. “I mean, to block radiation or whatever.”

  “I hope we’ll never have to find out, but for now, it’s all we’ve got.”

  Hank nodded his approval. He began to wander around the kitchen, randomly picking up dropper bottles and reading the labels. Lavender, lemon, peppermint, rosemary, and chamomile were some of the ingredients he saw used the most often. Each label also had the oil’s proposed use, including antibacterial, pain, headache, and stress.

  “I’ll take a bottle of this,” he said before adding, “Make it a double.”

  It was lavender, the most effective essential oil for stress.

  Part IV

  Day eleven, Monday, October 28

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Monday, October 28

  Fairfax, Virginia

  Jackie was sobbing as Peter grasped her by the hand and led her through the CVS parking lot. He constantly glanced over his shoulder to watch for the last gunman to emerge in some poorly conceived effort to gain revenge for the deaths of his buddies. Peter had murdered them. That was a fact. Not that his actions could ever be justified, he knew that if he didn’t strike first, they would’ve killed him.

  Once they crossed the boulevard and entered the woods, Jackie dropped to her knees from mental and physical exhaustion. Peter knelt down next to her. The sun was rising although it was mostly obscured by the smoky skies. The fires surrounding Washington had apparently intensified, and the cloud floating above them was mostly black from soot.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said between her deep breaths and sniffles. “You needed me to protect you, and I crawled in the corner to hide.”

  Peter gently patted her on the back as if she were a child. To him, it had all worked out well. At least she hadn’t panicked and shot him when he exited the pharmacy area.

  “No worries. We’ve got your grandmother’s medicine and a few other things. That’s all that matters.”

  “I knew them. At least one of them, anyway.” Jackie wiped her face and nose with her sleeve. Her blubbering subsided as she gathered herself. She glanced through the shrubs toward the drugstore before standing with the assistance of Peter. “I went to high school with him. I hope you shot him. He deserved to die.”

  Peter scowled. “Whadya mean?”

  “He raped my girlfriend when she was just thirteen. She went to a party to have fun. He was a senior in high school and got her drunk. When she passed out, he raped her.”

  “God, Jackie. That’s awful. I’m so—”

  “She tried to tell the police, but they said they couldn’t prove it,” Jackie continued. Her jaw was set, an
d there was anger in her eyes. “After they let him off the hook, he bragged all over school about his conquest, as he called it. My friend and I later found out he did this to other girls.”

  Peter had no idea which man she was referring to. As they’d entered the pharmacy, he’d taken them out. Not that it mattered. Certainly, three of them were dead, and the fourth was like a frightened animal bleeding out in the back of the building.

  “Well, it’s over now. Come on. Your grandmother and those cute little kids need you.”

  Jackie laughed and spontaneously hugged Peter. “They’re not cute, frat boy. They are monsters.”

  Peter laughed as he pointed down the path they’d used earlier. “Somehow I doubt that. They seemed well behaved when I was there.”

  “They were afraid. Once they get to know you, the true monster comes out of all of them.”

  Talking about her siblings seemed to place a new spring in Jackie’s step. She began to half-jog down the path, forcing Peter to do the same to catch up. Once they hit the sidewalks winding their way through the apartment complexes, Jackie was taking long strides as if she were power walking. Peter was amazed at how quickly she’d recovered from her angst.

  “Mamaw is gonna be all right, isn’t she?” asked Jackie as they arrived at their complex.

  Peter reached out to grab her arm. “Let’s talk about that before we get there. Jackie, this is just a temporary solution for her. I mean, after it’s taken from the fridge, it should last several weeks as long as temperatures stay cool.”

  “You mean like they are right now?”

  In the excitement, Peter hadn’t noticed the sudden drop in temperatures. “Yeah, actually. But what I’m saying is that this will run out eventually. You’re gonna have to find a hospital for her. I don’t think you can count on help from the government anytime soon.”