Storm's Fury - Book 5 (ARC) by Mike Kraus

Author:Mike Kraus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mike Kraus
Published: 2020-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Somewhere in South Chicago, Illinois

They’d grabbed only a couple of hours of sleep at the community center before deciding to make their way out of the city, and Shawna was growing more and more convinced that it had been the right move. Moving from shadow to shadow, the group had narrowly avoided three separate military patrols, rolling down the streets in Humvees and mechanized units, a loudspeaker blaring about curfews and martial law.

In between the military groups had been several smaller gatherings of citizens, mostly gaunt and desperate-looking people scrambling from cover to cover, clinging to the last of their belongings. To a person, they were wild-eyed and frantic, in one case, stopping to smash out a window and venture into what appeared to be an insurance agency, desperate to find anything that might help them live another day.

Shawna had watched them uncomfortably, secretly wondering how long her group had until they had that same look in their own eyes. She hadn’t realized how truly fortunate they’d been to establish the Stronghold, finding a community and leaning on each other in those first few hard weeks.

Now they had nothing. Between the four of them, they had two backpacks filled with random supplies and three weapons—two pistols and a rifle. There was a good amount of ammunition spread between the three weapons, but if a true firefight broke out, it wouldn’t be enough. It felt as though they were walking a very narrow tightrope, and the wrong step would undoubtedly send them toppling to their painful demise.

Even as they moved over the sidewalk, coming up just north of Orland Grove, they felt the need to move quickly but quietly, sirens and the occasional squawking bleat of a megaphone still audible from within the tighter confines of the city center behind them.

Ducking low and hugging the trees of the forest preserve to their south, they picked up the pace, sacrificing some of their stealth in a desperate need to get clear of Chicago. The thick, pungent reek of smoke lingered in the air and to the north they could still see several columns of roiling black smoke belching from the structures that made up the city just outside Wrigley Field. Shouting voices were barely audible within the city limits, but beyond that it was an almost deathly quiet, a disturbingly thorough silence in a city that, once upon a time, seemed eternally noisy.

“So quiet out there,” Tristan whispered, following along behind Shawna as she moved behind the trees of the forest preserve, just to stay clear of the street. “It truly sounds like the end of the world.”

“Feels like it, too,” Bruce said, walking along the grass to the left of them, looking out over the park. Selanda said nothing, just lingered behind them, walking as if in some sort of trance, putting one foot in front of the other, but only out of habit.

Shawna looked at Bruce, who more and more was getting a sort of vacant look in his eyes.

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