Worst Case Scenario - Book 5: Militia Read online

  WORST CASE SCENARIO

  Series

  Militia

  Book 5

  G. Allen Mercer

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  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2015 G. Allen Mercer

  Orb of Time Books

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording, or otherwise, except to quote on blogs or reviews without the expressed written permission of the author. Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is punishable by law. Permission can be requested at: www.GAllenMercer.com

  Cover design and text by G. Allen Mercer

  Evil is everywhere. What you do about it is what matters.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  The farmhouse was ablaze. A part of the hill behind the crumbled stables crackled with fire. The charred metallic skeletal remains of three helicopters smoldered in the field. Hell had come to the Tiller farm.

  Two of America’s military fighter jets screamed over the farm, surveying the damage. They pulled up into a climb, applied afterburners, and rocketed away.

  Grace ran towards the farmhouse, screaming for Joshua to help, when she saw movement from her right. She raised her weapon and just as quickly lowered it.

  “Anna! Adam! You’re alive!” They ran to her, all three falling into a group hug. “I thought you were dead.” She squeezed them again before turning towards the farmhouse.

  Joshua skidded to a halt next to the group. He briefly put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. “I need your help,” he said, and then he took off for the water well located between the burning house and the pasture.

  The farm’s water supply was fed by a deep underground well; that Bob had designed to be EMP proof but not bullet proof. The electrically insulated control box that regulated the pump had been destroyed by one of the helicopters.

  “Turn it on!” Adam yelled at his brother. He held the end of the garden hose, pointing a dry nozzle at the blaze consuming his home.

  “I can’t! It’s destroyed. I’ve got to pump it by hand,” he yelled. He then bypassed the electronic pump and started pumping a turn-of-the-century handle on a mechanical pump.

  Twenty seconds later, he was rewarded with the flow of water filling the hosepipes. Josh pumped as hard as he could, but he would never match the pressure of the electronic pump and deliver enough water to put out the fire.

  Adam sprayed the jet fuel fed fire with the low water flow; it had little effect. Anna and Grace held onto each other, helpless, as they watched the boys struggle and the place burn.

  “All of our parents are gone,” Anna whispered.

  Grace slowly shook her head. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. The heat of the fire was so hot that she thought she could smell the singe of her hair. “No,” she finally mouthed.

  Joshua found a second hose and did his best to help his brother put out the fire, but their efforts, and the lack of real water pressure, garnered little results. Grace and Anna moved to stand by the boys as they worked. Grace turned to look at the horses, unable to stare at the funeral pyre any longer. The horses were panicked and ran around the far side of the pasture, staying as far away from the heat and commotion as they could manage. That is when she saw motion again. Reflexes brought her rifle up, ready to fire.

  “Mary!” Grace said, seeing the woman standing in an open part of the field, 25 yards away. “What the f…”

  Anna turned to look at what Grace was yelling about and saw her, too. “Mary!” Both started running towards the woman in the field. “Where did you come from? Are you okay?” Anna fired off first. “Oh, my God, you’re bleeding!”

  “I’m okay,” she mouthed without a lot of emotion.

  “Are my parents okay?” Grace shot next.

  Mary nodded. She was soaked in blood.

  Anna grabbed the shoulders of the woman, looking for an injury. She was fine.

  Leah appeared out of the ground a few yards away, then Violet Tiller, and then Ian. They were climbing up an airshaft that fed the bunker under the burning house.

  Violet was also covered with blood, and she looked like she was in shock.

  “Josh, look,” Adam said, turning around to see the reunion in the field. They had totally forgotten about the airshaft. “The bunker saved them,” Adam said to his brother, smacking him on the shoulder as he broke into a run to see his mother.

  Joshua didn’t answer, but he too ran to his mother. She looked injured.

  “Mom, are you hurt?” Adam was first to reach his mother.

  Anna was still checking over Mary, when Adam showed up.

  “It’s not my blood,” Mary said before Anna could ask another question. Anna didn’t know what to do. She looked at Violet, the ER nurse, but her state of shock further compounded the situation.

  “Are you sure?” Anna asked for the final time.

  “Yeah, I’m not hurt, its…” but, she didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Mom, where are you hurt? There’s so much blood!” Adam asked again. He looked all over her for a bullet wound, but could not find an injury.

  “Where’s Dad?” Joshua asked, with one hand on his mother. She looked at her oldest son. Her eyes were wide and reflected the flames of her burning home. “Mom!” He gently squeezed her shoulder. “Mom, where is Dad?”

  Violet shook her head slowly. She couldn’t speak.

  “Mr. Burrows?” Adam turned to Ian. “Where’s my Dad?”

  Ian inhaled deeply. He released his daughter to Leah and took a step towards Joshua and Adam.

  “Your father…” he cleared his throat. “Your Dad is gone,” his voice cracked slightly, the news pained him deeply.

  Both Tiller boys gazed at the man as if he were speaking ancient Egyptian.

  “What?” Adam whispered. His mother looked away from the fire and at her boys. She reached out and pulled both of them into her chest.

  “It’s true,” she whispered into their hair. She held both boys as if she was never going to let them go. “He died in my arms.”

  “But…but,” Adam pulled back from his mother, some of his father’s blood had imprinted on his cheek from his mother’s shirt. “You’re an ER nurse…you…you save people. You saved him before. You…”

  As Joshua released his mother, his demeanor changed. He put both hands on his younger brother’s shoulders and spoke from a place that he had never wished to speak be. “Adam. Adam,” his voice was calm and steady.

  “But he can’t be gone. He was ready for anything. He prepped. He was a Marine. He…”

  “Adam,” Joshua said again. “Look at me.”

  Adam pivoted his eyes up to his brother.

  “I need you here, with us. Dad is go
ne. It’s up to us now.” Joshua stepped into a role that he had hoped he would never have to occupy. “Mom and I need you now more than ever. Do you hear me?”

  It took a second, as if the words were traveling through a filter, but Adam nodded.

  “Adam, we need to protect mom. Do you hear me?” Joshua asked, again.

  Adam’s eyes traveled from looking at Joshua to his mother and then back to Joshua. He nodded, again.

  “Boys,” Ian stepped up next to them and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’m so sorry. Your father was a very good man.” He waited for a second before saying what he had to say.

  Both Adam and Joshua nodded in agreement with Ian, and Joshua felt the sting of his own tears pushing at the rims of his eyes. There was a knot in his throat, and he found it hard to breath. He looked over at Grace. She met his stare, her forehead wrinkled in pain for the family, and her eyes were red with tears.

  Ian looked out at the three burning carcasses of the downed helicopters. These kids did this. These kids were the ones that saved us. He thought before speaking.

  “We have to go,” his voice a whisper at first. “We have made our presence known to the enemy. We’ve killed too many of them for them not to know something is going on in this area. It is only a matter of time before they come to hunt us down.”

  “What does that mean?” Mary asked.

  “It means we have to leave. We have to leave now.” He paused to look at his watch. “I bet we have less than an hour before they have a drone, or another helicopter, or an entire legion coming over the pass and zeroing in on this farm.”

  Joshua looked around the farm. This was his home. He had known no other place other than college. A jolt of panic shot through him. Two thoughts at once collided in his head.

  “What about burying Dad, and we need to warn the neighbors?”

  Violet sobbed at her son voicing the act of burying her husband.

  Ian thought through the situation as quickly as he could, but Leah and Grace beat him to the punch.

  “We need to get everything necessary to bug out in the Jeep and the El Camino,” Grace suggested.

  “And you boys need to get on the horses and warn the neighbors that you can,” Leah suggested. “The rest of us will help load.”

  “Yea, but what about my Dad?” Adam asked. “Who will…who will, you know, take care of him?”

  “I will.” Everyone looked at Ian.

  CHAPTER 2

  In less than forty-five minutes, the women had taken everything they could think of to further their survival and packed it into the El Camino or the Jeep. Anna corralled the two horses that the boys didn’t take and tacked them for her and Grace.

  Violet did her best to compartmentalize her new reality without her husband or the farm. Mostly, she busied herself with moving the medical supplies she had stored in the bunker. Every so often, she would look over to the oak tree where Ian was frantically digging a grave. The covered body of her husband lay next to the growing mound of soil.

  “Hey,” Leah said, walking up to her husband. He didn’t stop digging.

  “Hey, how are we doing?”

  “It’s been about forty-five minutes. The vehicles are packed. We have all of Bob’s ammo and weapons. Almost none of his radios made it, except a couple of long range two ways that were in the bunker. Your secure radio was destroyed, too.” She paused to wipe the sweat from her brow. “I did find a solar charger to power up our own two-ways, though.”

  “That’s good, about the chargers, I mean,” he said, still digging.

  “Also, Violet wanted me to give you this,” she said, holding something out for him to take. “She wants you to give it to the boys when you think the time is right.”

  Ian stopped digging and looked at his wife, and then at the cigar box size enclosure. “What is it?” he asked, reaching up to take it from his wife.

  “Just open, you’ll see,” she said, wiping a tear from her eyes.

  Ian leaned the shovel against the side of the grave and gently opened the box. He then breathed in deep and closed the box. Ian climbed out of the rectangle shaped hole and gently placed the box next to Bob’s covered body.

  “I’ll make sure they get these, my friend,” he whispered. A hard knot formed in his throat, and he cleared his voice.

  “You, okay?” Leah asked. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He nodded.

  “Will you please help me place him in? We need to get going ASAP.” he asked, putting the task of the metal box into the back of his mind. He would need the right situation to give these to the boys.

  “Sure,” Leah offered.

  Once finished, she radioed the rest of the team to join them under the oak tree. The boys had just returned from warning as many neighbors as they could and were watering the horses for the next part of the journey. Ian watched the boys make the walk from the dilapidated stables, past the smoldering farmhouse, and to their father’s resting place. He was painfully aware of the minutes that were ticking by. Each minute represented another minute that the Chinese were closing in on their location with heavy reinforcements. He was just about to speak when Violet started talking.

  “We have been together for 31 years,” she started. “He was always one to put me and the boys first, that is, except for his faith and his country. We knew each other in high school but didn’t start dating until after we graduated. He worked two jobs and went to night school for computers, before he found what he really loved…the Marines. I loved him from the moment I saw him. The day he graduated from boot camp, and I saw him in that uniform, I knew…I just knew that we were destined to be together. He asked me to marry him on that same day…and…and I know he loved me…” she broke down sobbing.

  Silence blanketed the group. The warm breeze stirred the leaves on the oak tree, almost providing their own story.

  “Dad was a teacher to us,” Adam broke the group’s contemplation. “He was the one that taught us how to ride, how to hunt, how to track. That stuff just came naturally to him. It’s probably why he did so well in the Marines. He could sit in a deer stand for hours without moving. He used to bet us to see who had to climb down and pee first.” Every one laughed a nervous laugh. Burying people wasn’t supposed to be funny. “Thank you, Dad,” Adam continued, his voice seemed to lose the tone of the happy memory, as he became somber. “Thank you for everything that you taught me. I hope I’ve made you…made you proud of me,” Adam finished with his own tears flowing.

  “My dad was fair,” Joshua said and then cleared the emotion from his voice, trying to find his inner strength. “He was honest, and he loved his family more than anything else in the world. If he was going to do something, he jumped full bore in. His job with the state, his career in the Marines, his marriage to Mom, and the raising of us,” Joshua said, looking at his brother. “I can think of no other person that has helped shape the man I have become other than my father.” He stopped and breathed in deeply of the air around their family farm. This was land passed down for generations, and he felt like the loss of his father was symbiotic with the loss of the land. He knew he was saying goodbye to both, for a very long time.

  “I love you, Dad. We’ll take care of mom,” Joshua continued, squeezing his arm around his mother. “And, we will win this war for you and for the country that you loved,” Joshua said, his voice warbling.

  Thirty seconds had passed when Ian felt Leah squeeze his hand; he needed to speak.

  Ian stepped forward and stood near the head of the grave before he began speaking. “Without Bob, I would be dead. Not once, but twice. He protected me, he protected my daughter when I could not, and he helped reunite my family at his home,” he looked into the eyes of everyone there. “Bob Tiller is a patriot. He is a man of God, and he is someone that should be emulated.” He ran his hand over his head. “Violet, Joshua, Adam, I could see that he loved you more than anything else, and that is the reason why he sacrificed his life in order to save us all.”
>
  Ian knelt down on one knee, peering into the grave, and picked up some of the loose soil. “Bob was and is a Marine, he was proud to be a Marine, and he died being a Marine.” Ian stood up and faced the group. “One of the last things we talked about was forming a militia between our two families. He wanted to call it War Dawgs. D-A-W-G-S not D-O-G-S,” Ian spelled. “He liked the roughness of the way it sounded.” Ian looked at the faces and could see smiles of recognition. “I propose that we do just that.”

  Everyone nodded.

  Ian walked to Joshua. “Son, hold out your hand.”

  Joshua did as instructed, holding his palm open. Ian let half of the dirt flow out of his own hand and into Joshua’s. “Today we will honor your father by becoming stronger together,” he said leading him to the side of the grave.

  Joshua held his hand over the grave and released the soil onto the covered body of his father. Ian did the same.

  “Watch over us, Dad,” Joshua said. “And watch over the War Dawgs!”

  CHAPTER 3

  Over the next ten minutes, the group hastily tied down everything on the vehicles. No sooner did Ian insist that the group get going, when Daisy started whining, and sat down next to the Jeep.

  “I think she hears something,” Leah said, responding to the action of her dog.

  “I bet it’s the choppers or a drone,” Ian said. “Okay, let’s get out of here,” he ordered the group.