Devil Dog: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Out Of The Dark Book 1) Read online

“How do you know it’s her?” I asked him quietly.

  “She mentioned that office building specifically,” Jeremy said, smiling.

  I rolled onto my back, so I could look to the building and to Jeremy without having to move much. I knew I was exposing myself a little to the roll, but no shots were fired.

  “If I were running the gang, I’d have all the high buildings near my hideout occupied with lookouts and snipers. Did you or Danielle check it out ahead of time? I mean, what if their leader is at least as smart as a homeless bum who eats whatever is stupid enough to go into his traps and nets?”

  I watched the color drain out of Jeremy’s face and I knew what he was feeling. It was the same thing as me. Horror, worry, fear. On top of all of that, we’d just gotten our first look at Manny. If that signal was from a mirror, it could have been seen by the nearly half a dozen men near the outside entrance.

  “We have to get down there,” I said, “If I saw that mirror, they could have, too.”

  “Not from this angle. Besides, we’d hear gunfire if somebody came near her. She has that .45 again.”

  I wanted to curse aloud. What did that impulsive fucking kid think she was doing? I knew she’d wanted to help… but truth be told, both of them had been acting rather irrationally lately…

  Then it hit me. I’d been working towards moving on. It was why I was finally taking the plunge to go after the slaves. And I’d been holding them back because they were staying. It was as simple as that and selfish in nature. I felt disgusted with myself. If something happened to them, I couldn’t go find Maggie and Mary.

  “Did she say when she was going to meet up with us?” I asked him.

  “No. Like I said, I never even knew she was going to do it till I saw the flash when that silver car was driving down the road. You were watching through the binoculars. Did anyone react then?”

  “No, all eyes were on the car,” I said.

  “See? We should be safe.”

  “How did she know what building we were going to be on top of?” I asked him. “We change positions.”

  “I told her I thought we’d be coming to this one. It’s got a good angle on the museum, it’s high enough up here on the roof to be out of the normal sight range unless you’re far off, and if you’re far off you’re not likely to see it. Fire escape… the works. I noticed it last time we were out patrolling.”

  Which meant I was becoming predictable. Shit… then I reconsidered. The kid was ROTC during his high school years and he’d walked the same terrain I had. I’d been inadvertently grooming him for when I left. Maybe, it was that weird sort of telepathy or synchronized thinking that the tabloid shows had talked about. Instead of wrestling or chest thumping, we’d picked out places to plan mayhem and mass murder for bonding time. Go me.

  “Let’s see if we can get her attention and meet up somewhere. I want to go looking for that car and the other gang before we take these guys out.”

  “Take them out? How are you going to do that? We’re totally outnumbered.”

  “I know, but finding that car is the first thing we have to do, and then we need to find out where everyone is.”

  “So you good? With Danielle being up there? You’re not going to yell at her, are you?”

  “Maggie’s always been a headstrong girl, it’s about damned time I gave her some credit,” I said, rolling over and getting to my knees and then crawling back towards the fire escape. “Otherwise, it’ll drive me crazy with worry every time she’s out of my sight.”

  It would too. My daughter could be snarky and headstrong, but Mary had raised her right without me being around for much of it. I had to give my ex all the credit there. I just wished I’d had the—

  “You mean Danielle, right?” Jeremy interrupted.

  “I… yeah. Slip of the tongue. I’ve been thinking about my daughter a lot lately,” I lied.

  13

  “I’m sorry Dick, I just don’t see it as that big of a deal,” Danielle fumed.

  We’d met her at the base of the office complex. She’d come out of hiding when Jeremy and I walked out into the open with our rifles at the easy ready position.

  “Did you clear the building first? Like we did with that apartment building last week?” I demanded.

  “I cleared everything up to where I was hiding out, Dick. The building’s been looted and gutted.”

  I looked at her hard, wondering if she was pulling one over on me.

  “There’s nothing up there but places for the pigeons to roost and shit all over,” she said.

  “Pigeons?” I asked her, storing that away for later if we wanted to add some squab to our menus.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said. “Did you see where that car went?” I asked her for the second time.

  “Yeah, but I lost it when it turned. I can show you. I don’t have the streets memorized.”

  “Can you show it to me in the dark?” I asked. “We’ve been out here a while, and I don’t want to tempt fate by moving in the daylight too much.”

  “Is there a storm drain or sewer that runs that way for half a mile?” Jeremy asked.

  “Not anything I know how to get into,” I told him. “It wasn’t part of the CTA system. Maybe if I were a city engineer I might know, but…”

  “Shhhh,” Danielle said, motioning all of us forward.

  I gave half a glance behind me before following her inside the old office building. Jeremy and I followed her in through the rubble-strewn lobby and bypassed the elevators. They were out anyways, but I wasn’t looking forward to eight flights of steps.

  “Hurry, they’re coming,” she said.

  “Who?” Jeremy asked.

  I went up the damned steps with her, glass crunching softly under my boots.

  “Search party, I think.”

  If she was right, it was just some of them sweeping through the area. Often times, looting what was left behind and being opportunistic thugs when they could be. Jeremy got it and hurried. She didn’t lead us to her last spot like I was expecting, but to a corner office on the third floor. The shades flapped uselessly and noisily in the broken out window frames. Chicago came by its nickname, ‘the windy city’ honestly.

  “Over here,” Danielle said, motioning.

  Two desks, rather large desks, had been shoved against the wall with a ton of stuff heaped on top of them. There was a hollowed out spot where the feet would go and it was into there that she scampered. I knelt down and followed her in. With the two desks pushed together, I expected the space to be tight, but it wasn’t horrible. That coming from a guy who lives underground.

  “Why here?” I asked her.

  “I know this place,” she said and then pulled over some scraps of paper and pushed them along the bottom edge, making a garbage barrier. We were all shoulder to shoulder, trying to turn around to face the front.

  “You think somebody’s been in here?” I heard a voice ask.

  “No, but it doesn’t hurt to look,” another said.

  “Man, I don’t see shit. You wanna go up to the top and get some birds?” a voice asked, one that sounded hokey enough to have come right out of a bad comedy act.

  “You and your hunting,” a different voice said. “If you want to go up eight flights of stairs for a few birds that don’t have much meat on them, go ahead. Rico’s still got a ton of food for us.”

  I heard the footsteps pass the doorway to where we were hiding.

  “Want to slip out while they walk around?” Jeremy whispered to me softly.

  “No, we wait,” I whispered back. Both of them nodded.

  I could hear the echoes on their footfalls from the stairwell and then above us. Something crashed loudly below and they all busted up laughing. It made me tense up and reach for the strap of the sling. I could get the shotgun to me in a hurry, but the report inside of the small desk cave would be deafening.

  Soon, the footfalls were coming back our way and the men were laughi
ng, talking about how much they’d scared the shit out of Ronnie. I was assuming they’d chucked something out of the fourth-floor window at someone and were laughing their asses off about it. All we had to do was stay frosty… and my mind slipped.

  I was laying on the floor of the bank, waiting for the mortar teams to take out the sniper’s nest. Both my battle buddies were down hard and Mike was still moving his legs weakly. The gunfire from the three men inside, combined with ours in the small confines had been deafening, and I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t make out his words. I crawled over to him, my M4 in my right hand. His lips moved again and he pulled at a pouch on his vest. I pressed my left hand over the hole in his stomach to staunch the flow of blood, but there was so much of it.

  “I can’t hear you, man,” I told him.

  He still kept reaching for the pouch, so I dropped my carbine and pulled it open for him. There was only one thing inside. It was a picture of a beautiful red-headed woman and his young kid. From the hat, I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl, but it’s what he wanted, so I gave it to him. He held it up, the blood on his hands marking the bottom of the picture. He held it up to his eyes and mumbled again. I could barely make out his words, but the ringing in my ears was starting to recede and I could make out consonants. Something moved in my peripheral vision and I stood up.

  One of the three men who’d played jack in the box with us wasn’t dead yet. He was thrashing on the ground, trying to pull his AK-47 close to him with a booted foot. That motion and what little of my hearing was left, was what had made me turn and look. I grabbed my M4 and walked over towards him, kicking the gun out of his way.

  He looked up at me in shock. His two friends were down hard and he was badly wounded. He had three rounds stitched into his chest from a burst. I made sure he didn’t die painfully and when I was done, I wiped my knife off on his shirt and sheathed it.

  “Mike, come on, man,” I said noticing him staring at me. “Don’t give up, I radioed it in.”

  I didn’t see the rising and falling of his chest. I walked over, his eyes never wavering as I moved. I knelt down, one hand scarlet from trying to stop the bleeding on him, the other splattered where I’d made someone else bleed profusely.

  “Mike?” I asked, feeling for a pulse.

  He was gone. Just like that. I’d turned my head, took the pressure off the wound to kill the last man… and he was gone. In his right hand, he still held the picture. I pulled it from him with the cleanest fingers I had and put it in an empty mag pouch of mine, trying to be careful not to fold it.

  “I’ll let them know for you,” I told him, shutting his eyes with two red smears.

  I went to my other bud. He’d taken the rounds in the head and had been gone instantly. He had been a loner, joining the military to get the GI bill. He loved it so much he’d never left. He’d denied promotions, done everything I had or was wanting to do. Be a good soldier, get in the middle of the shit. Make a difference, one ugly, bloody battle at a time.

  “Six, you have sniper’s position in sight?” I heard through the earwig that had been silent for a while.

  “Affirmative. Call in the adjustments as you see them.”

  “go go go go go go go go go go”….

  “Come on, Dick,” Jeremy was whispering into my ear, rocking my body hard with his hand. “We have to go. You’re freaking out Danielle.”

  “She’s…” I looked around.

  We were alone inside in the hollowed out space. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had room to do that.

  “Are they gone?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, a couple minutes ago. You just sorta… went to sleep or something,” Jeremy’s voice was scared sounding.

  “Sorry, got lost in my thoughts. Danielle?” I whispered louder for her.

  “Here.”

  “Wait for me, they might have left someone behind to intercept anyone coming out of hiding.”

  “Oh shit, yeah, I’m waiting.” she whispered.

  Getting out was harder than getting in and I made a little noise when my gun banged against the desks. Finally, I got out and stretched. The popping of my joints was almost as loud as when Jeremy went to stand and stumbled into Danielle, knocking them both to the ground. They ended up in a heap with Jeremy landing on his soft head. I smiled as a goofy grin filled Jeremy’s features when Danielle got off of him.

  “Shhhh, dumbass,” Danielle said, brushing her pants off.

  “You both be quiet,” I said, moving past them, towards the window.

  I looked out, and seven men were crossing the street ahead of us, most of them with pistols or knives tucked into their waistbands or holstered on their belts/sheaths. None of them looked as gnarled as the group I’d taken down already. These guys were moderately well groomed, which was the first thing I noticed. Five of them sported beards, but close-cropped. I pulled out my binoculars and was able to confirm that at least two of them had been recently clean shaven as well.

  Their hair was also cut neatly, a detail I tucked away in the back of my mind. None of their clothing stood out, but they walked with a confidence that was evident in their swagger. Nobody had messed with them and other than taking out that one gang, they weren’t expecting anything big to go down. I hadn’t really put two and two together until now, but the rest of the gang was groomed somewhat normal as well. Something to think of. Maybe they had a barber or cosmologist in there…

  “Do we wait here?” Danielle asked from behind me.

  “No, I think there’s something I gotta do first,” I told her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Did Larry ever tell you his last name?” I asked her, changing the subject.

  “Uh… Michaels, I think,” she told me with a puzzled look on her face. “What do you have to do?”

  “I need to go find Jamie,” I told her. “My hair’s a bit too long.”

  “I think he’s lost it,” I heard Jeremy whisper. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, so I ignored it.

  “You know, without clippers, I can’t get it too close,” Jamie said.

  She’d taken no time to cut the longest parts of my hair off and had begun trimming it down. I’d asked her for a finger length on the sides and back and two or three inches up top to style or spike. She’d nodded and had been going without comment until now.

  “That’s fine. Just get the sides as close as you can and blend it in.” I told her.

  “Sir, yes sir!” she said, but she wasn’t joking, she was pissed.

  “I’m sorry if I’m being too much of a pain…”

  “You’ve got everybody freaked out,” Mel told me, pulling a bucket up close and sat on it in front of me.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “You won’t tell Jeremy and Danielle what you’re planning, and now you’re getting all spiffed up like you have a hot date.”

  “I do have a hot date,” I told her.

  “See, that’s just weird. You’re scaring us.”

  “The little kids aren’t scared,” I said, pointing.

  “They’re playing board games. Oh, by the way, Salina was down here today. She made it all the way down. Mom heard her calling out and got her back here.”

  I winced. I’d forgotten about meeting with her, but I’d been obsessed with taking the scum out.

  “Mouse seems to be in a good mood. Did it go well?” I asked the mother-daughter pair.

  They hesitated in answering me and finally it was Jamie who replied, her hands massaging my scalp as she made cuts with a sharp pair of scissors.

  “Yes. She brought her son, too. You should have seen Pauly’s eyes light up. I think he likes the idea of a big brother for a protector.”

  “How did Mouse act around him?” I asked.

  “Very scared at first, but he just sat down at the edge of the mezzanine away from everyone else. Salina couldn’t get him to come and meet them. I think he kind of understood that he was scaring her.”

  “So how did she…?�
�

  “Pauly stole her hairbrush and gave it to Jerome,” Mel said with a smile touching the corner of her lips.

  “That’ll do it,” I said smiling.

  “But, Dick,” Mel said standing and pushing the bucket out of the way. “Why won’t you tell them what the plan is? I mean, Jeremy said it was like you had a seizure when you all were hiding out. They’re all just worried that…”

  “I’ll snap and hurt you guys?” I asked her suddenly.

  Jamie stopped cutting and I could feel her moving back as her hands left me.

  “No, I don’t think that’s what they’re worried about,” Jamie said, walking in front so she could see me.

  “No? Then why isn’t my word good enough? I have a plan, and every time I try to go through with one, I get party crashers. This one, I can’t have any extras. I won’t have room and I’m going to be moving too hard and too fast.”

  “So there is a conscious reason,” Jamie said, pulling a black plastic comb out of her back pocket.

  “Yes, it's not just me doing something off the wall,” I told her. “There is a plan in place.”

  “Is it more of you running and gunning?” Mel asked.

  I looked her over. She’d recently washed and was in a new change of clothes. Removing the layers of grime had done a lot for the young lady. If anything, she looked even younger than fifteen. Despite that, I could see the intelligence shining brightly behind her hazel eyes. It was like she was a human lie detector and she was judging on whether or not I was being truthful.

  “Some of it,” I said ruefully as Jamie stood right in front of me and worked on my bangs.

  I closed my eyes, so I wouldn’t stare and let her finish the haircut.

  “How’s that look?” Danielle asked me, holding up a mirror.

  I hadn’t known she was behind me, but it made sense. It wasn’t a huge space and I was undergoing my extreme makeover.

  “I look like… Not me,” I told her, surprised.

  Staring back at me in her makeup mirror was an image of me that I hadn’t seen in well over twenty years. I had enough sandy brown hair to style and my beard was close-cropped. Crow’s feet were pulling at the edges of my eyes and laugh lines had formed near the edges of my mouth, only to be mostly covered with a ginger-colored facial hair.