After the Virus: New World Order by Simon Archer

Author:Simon Archer [Archer, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-02T22:00:00+00:00

21

I took that momentary sit down to catch my breath and do an internal inventory of my injuries. My back and left shoulder ached from the fight and where I’d been thrown around. Where I’d been shot, though, hurt like a bitch despite the armor. I leaned forward, squirmed an arm around, and fumbled for the rounds.

They’d hit just above my kidneys, but thanks to the plating in my armor, the hits hadn’t really injured me aside from bruising. I looked over to watch Angie talking quietly to the weeping woman. The woman kept shaking her head, but finally looked up.

Angie rose and offered her a hand up, which she took. “We’ll be outside, Henry,” she called over to me.

I nodded, then forced myself to my feet as they walked out. Somehow, it seemed wrong to leave the dead sprawled where they were on the floor of the sanctuary, so I took a few minutes and dragged them all together and off to the side. There wasn’t much to be done about the blood, though. That would have to wait until later.

I felt dazed. The combat had been so fast that I really hadn’t had time to think.

Once I was done with that, I clicked my radio on.

“-you there?” Bruce was asking.

“I thought,” I said tiredly. “That I wanted radio silence.” My feet carried me up onto the altar and out the door Price had fled through. It led through some offices and by some storage rooms to a rear exit. Jake said the reverend wouldn’t be a problem, but I really had to see for myself.

“Oh,” he said. “I figured that since the excitement had died down, you might want a quick report.”

“Go ahead,” I shouldered my M27 as I pushed the back door open and blinked at the daylight. A LAV-C2 sat there a short distance away, half of its eight tires resting on the rear sidewalk of the church. Raymond Price’s body lay sprawled near the back door of it, an expression of surprise on his dead face.

Jake had shot him center of mass, and three bloody holes marred his dark suit. There was something surreal about the whole thing, really. Maybe I hadn’t wanted things to end like this, despite the expectation that it really was us or them.

I looked down at Price’s corpse. Sure, I’d seen Raymond Price on television, and heard him on the radio, but in death, all of that malice drained away like blood.

I reached up and scratched my head thoughtfully. All this trouble just from one man.

No. It wasn’t just one man. Price had been shocked and surprised when Stern shot the civilian in the church. They hadn’t planned that. Maybe the disgraced soldier had been more of the problem than the reverend. Still, we were in a difficult spot, and there was no way that I’d ever have surrendered myself or my little group to these people.

I crouched down, reached over, and closed Price’s eyes. Then, with a creak of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.