Gun (Gun Apocalypse Series Book 1) Read online

  G U N

  LEE HAYTON

  eBook Copyright © 2017 Lee Hayton

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 13: 978-0-473-38118-9

  ISBN 10: 0-473-38118-4

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Coming Soon...

  Also by the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Marlene

  “Can you turn that up?”

  Marlene looked over her shoulder to see the woman voicing the request pointing to the corner-mounted television. A small girl standing behind her caught Marlene’s glance and tugged at her mother’s hand before pressing forward into the safe folds of her skirt. The barista clicked the remote until the woman nodded in satisfaction, sounds pouring into the small room.

  Another distraction. Great. This list wasn’t going to write itself, which was a pity because, at this rate, Marlene wasn’t going to write it either.

  1) It’s not you, it’s me.

  2) You’re selfish in bed.

  One reason contradicted the other, so she’d have to choose. Marlene frowned and lifted her cup for another gulp of coffee to find she’d already drained it dry. The only remaining content was a smudge of beige foam clinging to the rim. After hunching her shoulders, she snaked her tongue out to lick it off. Manners didn’t count if no one saw.

  Marlene needed to plan a list of reasons for her breakup with Gavin—this being the break-up Gavin didn’t know about yet. A Girl Scout at heart, she wanted to ensure she had instant responses to any questions. Answers that would enable Gavin to leave with his pride intact while also ensuring that he did indeed leave.

  With a sigh, she crossed through both short lines, leaving a doodle and a fingerprint formed in coffee.

  Her office was buzzing with news of an upcoming promotion. For years, Marlene had put in the hours, hard work, and sales to earn it. That raise had her name written all over it.

  Yet here she sat, alone in a café, taking a day off work to not write a list. Marlene looked at her watch—almost ten o’clock already. Two hours gone and two cups of coffee swallowed.

  The problem wasn’t a lack of reasons. The problem was that Marlene’s reasons were hurtful. If she said them aloud to Gavin, they’d wound him. When she got excited, he accused her of being shrill. She didn’t want him to remember her as a shrill and hurtful woman.

  She wanted to be the one that got away. The one Gavin would think of when a future wife nagged him to take out the trash.

  “ . . . and the death toll has risen to over three hundred people.”

  Marlene shot an idle glance at the television. On the screen, St. Peter’s Square—a place etched in her memory from a long-ago European adventure—lay empty under an overcast sky.

  No. Not empty.

  Marlene slipped off the stool and took a step closer, squinting. White sheets lay dotted around the circular expanse. The high aerial view made them look like paving tiles until the camera zoomed closer.

  Those are bodies.

  The skin on Marlene’s arms rose in pimples of gooseflesh, each individual hair standing to attention.

  The woman who’d asked for sound now pressed her hands to either side of her young daughter’s head, covering her ears.

  Onscreen, the image changed to an inside shot of a shopping mall. “Sydney, Australia,” read the tagline across the base of the screen. Colors merged and bled as the camera operator ran. The view settled for a moment to show a woman standing near a shop window, her weapon spraying automatic fire. A bright starburst sweeping in a curve.

  The images swooped and jerked again, the view of someone running for his life.

  Disquieted, Marlene looked behind her and grabbed her handbag off the floor, a pulse beating high in her throat. She’d tangled the strap around the stool legs, and it tilted. Kneeling, she lifted the chair with shaky hands while pulling the shoulder strap free.

  As she rose again, Marlene looked out the window. A flood of people poured from the mall entrance. A man fell headlong, hands out to break his fall. The crowd behind him didn’t stop, just trod across his back until they obscured him from sight.

  Marlene swallowed, her throat clicking. The coffee shop was in the corner of the mall parking lot. Half the crowd was now headed her way.

  A closer movement caught her eye—a man opening the back door of his vehicle. He lifted a long bag out and left the door open as he walked toward the café. The bag was the same shape as the one her dad took “hunting,” a sport that involved guzzling warm beer for hours before using a large-bore weapon to explode an animal’s entrails in a crimson splash over the forest floor.

  Ignoring the oncoming tide of people, the man strode across the empty parking spaces—Café Customers Only, Offenders WILL Be Towed. A yard from the entrance, he jerked the leather strap off his shoulder to rest the bag on twin planters sporting spiky cacti. After unzipping the bag to free a shotgun, he broke the barrel and fumbled two gleaming shells out of his jeans.

  The spit dried in Marlene’s mouth. Her tongue stuck fast to her palate while her mind tried to scream a warning. At the same time her brain yelled, “Gun, he’s got a gun!” another part of her stood by in quiet denial. This isn’t happening.

  When his boot kicked the base of the door open, her denial broke. Marlene screamed and dove for the high-walled shelter of the neighboring booth.

  The man didn’t say a word as he walked inside. He swung the barrel, lining up then dismissing patrons as they lunged for safety. He fixed on the girl and her mother, advancing one step, two.

  “No.”

  Marlene didn’t know if the cry came out of her mouth or sounded only in her head. She flung her body forward on the linoleum floor, arms sweeping out to either side as though swimming. The woman crouched and pushed her daughter behind her. Marlene grabbed the girl by the arm and swung her toward the safety of the booth.

  The shotgun blast in the confined space tore Marlene’s eardrums. The woman’s head exploded to the accompaniment of a dull whine. Marlene’s next sharp intake of breath drew in droplets of blood, shards of bone, flecks of brain. Her eyes swam with red, the mother’s blood being diluted by her tears. Pinpoints of pain burned across her face. Marlene brushed sharp splinters free—shattered fragments of skull. As she raised her forearm to stop the girl running forward, pain howled along her nerves. Half a shattered molar was embedded deep in her flesh.

  The daughter screamed, and Marlene hugged her tight in a failed attempt to calm her. When the gunman swiveled his weapon toward them, she shoved the child aside and opened her arms. Let him kill Marlene. A grown woman. No one would shoot an innocent, golden-haired toddler.

  The child’s head burst, spattering a grotesque shower against the coffee shop window. Marlene froze, ears buzzing, vision dimming to gray. She tucked her head to her chest, not wanting to see, pressing her eyelids closed to shut out the world.

  When she opened them, turning back to the gunman, Marlene realized her mistake. She recognized the action as he locked the barrel back into place.

  He’d reloaded.

  A reload took seconds. Expel the cartridges. Pull out new shells. Load them into the gun. Click everything into place.

  These were seconds during which Marlene could have run for the door. Could have risen to attack the gunman.
Could have saved her life.

  She’d wasted her last seconds.

  The barrel swung around until Marlene stared into dark tubes hosting a deadly cargo. Her petrified muscles slackened as the man’s finger tensed, tensed on the trigger. She saw a flash in the blackness of the cylinder.

  Chapter Two

  Annie

  Annie rubbed at her temples, resisting the urge to poke her fingers into her ears. “If you don’t stop whining, young man, those cookies will go straight into the garbage.”

  Mikey’s ear-splitting screech lowered into uneasy sobbing. Annie had meant for their early-morning visit to Redchester to be a treat. As well as the best fresh vegetables and gluten-free home baking, the commune had a petting zoo to keep Mikey entranced.

  Unfortunately, Mikey had formed an immediate attachment to a jaunty spring lamb. Just because their time together was brief didn’t mean their separation hadn't been heartfelt. Even the hand-woven bracelet the staff had given him for free hadn't worked. For the last hour, he’d subjected his parents to various shows of displeasure.

  At least Greg sat beside her in the driver’s seat. If it were just Mikey and her, Annie would feel like a bad mother. Greg’s scowls upped her parenting confidence no end.

  Lower lip wobbling, Mikey turned his wide blue eyes to the window. The turn off the freeway offered a temporary distraction. Ever since he could first see, cars had entranced him. Although Greg insisted Mikey’s first word was “Dada,” Annie would swear “zoom-zoom” came a tad earlier.

  “I thought the new car seat would make him happier,” Annie grumbled. They’d recently upgraded when Mikey turned three.

  Easing the car around the bend, Greg grunted in agreement, having more reason than she did to be miffed. After an hour of attempting to assemble the seat himself, he’d ended with an I-give-up trip to the fire station. Although Annie had made the proper sympathetic sounds throughout, the weekend experience had been far more entertaining for her than for him. When her own car was back from the mechanics, Greg would get to repeat the experiment.

  When Mikey faced forward and remembered his grievance by sounding a test shriek, Annie turned with her finger pointed. The threat was so effective she no longer needed to use words.

  A finger point meant “one more sound, and you’ll go to your room,” and if Mikey continued, she always backed it up with action. Ten years from now, Mikey might prefer his own space to parental supervision, but for now, Mommy and Dada were the bomb.

  “I’ll take in the groceries,” Annie volunteered as Greg nosed the car into the driveway.

  He rubbed his forehead, and Annie leaned across to squeeze the back of his neck. Poor fellow. Some bug had struck him down a few days ago, and as his loving wife, she was full of sympathy . . . Right up to the point of battling their super-duper-safe car seat for possession of their son.

  Annie ruffled her son’s hair and pulled a face as she bent across to snag the first two bags. When she was a student, the weekly grocery store trip had involved a daunting supply of ramen noodles that would still fit into a single bag. Now it took three trips to carry their varied array of goods inside.

  “Greg?” As she bumped the door closed with her hip, Annie saw Greg still seated behind the wheel. He massaged his temples with slow circles, eyes closed in a deep frown. “Do you want me to fetch an aspirin?”

  “I’ll be okay. Just need to catch up on sleep.” The voice that had wooed her as an art student sounded featureless and flat. The lack of affect disturbed her more than any complaint of pain.

  “Go lie down. I’ll empty the car,” she said. Mikey’s mouth hung open, his child’s spidey sense always on full alert for parental undertones. Annie poked out her tongue and crossed her eyes, but it only raised a weak smile. “Go on, honey. I’ll manage.”

  As though she’d dealt a blow to his manhood, Greg jumped down from the driver’s seat and opened the back door. For a second, Annie hesitated, unsettled. If she insisted on him going straight to bed, he would. And he did look ill.

  Then Mikey started to “help” him with the car seat, leading Greg to unleash a stream of muttered curses. Annie scurried inside with the shopping before he changed his mind.

  #

  Storing fresh eggs, Annie typed into her laptop. In her head, she kept track of a dozen different cabinets and fridge compartments, housing scores of food supplies, each according to their needs. No matter how she tried, though, Annie couldn’t for the life of her remember where to store fresh eggs. The fridge or the bench?

  Still, this was why the Internet existed. Annie clicked on a link and found the information, placing the eggs in a bowl on the bench. Room temperature until cooked.

  Without thinking, she clicked on a random link with her thumb. Wikipedia was her nemesis and her delight—the ability to follow links within links led her merrily down the rabbit hole more often than she wanted to admit.

  With her finger poised to discover why male seahorses could get pregnant and give birth, Annie gave a start. Ice cream. One bag held a pint of ice cream. Trying to give herself a reward without cheating on every diet known to man, she’d placed the high-priced tub in their basket. Gluten free, lactose free, no added sugar. The result would probably be disappointing, but it would be even more so if she didn’t get it into the freezer straight away.

  Ten minutes had flown by. And what was Greg doing? Could he still be wrestling their son out of the car?

  The car engine revved as her hand touched the front door. Frowning, she opened it wide to see Greg reversing the car onto the street. Where was he going? Annie ran onto the drive. When he didn’t stop or seem to see her, she yelled and waved her arms.

  The car swerved into the middle of the street before screeching to a stop. Annie hesitated, weight on her tiptoes then ran to the edge of the road. With the engine idling, Greg leaned over from the driver’s seat to pop open the glove box. Through the closed windows, she heard Mikey yelling his head off.

  Annie caught a glimpse of Mikey staring at her from bulging, frightened eyes, mouth open, the cords in his neck bulging with the force of his shrieks. Greg still leaned across the seat, not looking at the road in front of him as he pressed his foot down and sped away.

  Black stripes on the asphalt marked where the car had been. Annie stopped running, hand still raised, mind pulsing with the thought, Our gun’s in the glove box. Why would Greg need a gun?

  A horn honked as her husband turned blindly into the intersection at the end of their road. Greg opened the door, twisted in his seat. Their gun in his hand, he squeezed off two shots, aiming down the side street at a target Annie couldn’t see.

  Fear for her son overwhelming her, Annie screamed and tore down the road, soles slapping against the overheated tarmac. She neared the parked car.

  So close.

  Annie stretched her fingers out for the back door handle. Mikey’s face turned to her. Tears streaked down his cheeks. His mouth gaped in soundless terror. His hands reached for her, shoulders straining against the tight buckles of his car seat.

  Greg slammed down the accelerator, and the car took off, tires squealing. The forward momentum clunked his door closed. The handle ripped away from Annie’s reaching fingers.

  As she stared after him, frozen by fear and confusion, a bullet whistled past her ear, and the back windshield shattered into a starburst. The safety glass sagged. A second later, a man ran past to her right, his gun drawn. He fired another shot, spewing incoherent curses. Another shot. Another.

  Greg turned the car around the corner, momentum spinning him in a wide arc that led his wheels over the pavement, over someone’s front lawn. Once again, he pulled the vehicle to a stop, this time firing at a white Mazda heading toward him, slowing into the same turn. Greg’s new target veered off course, crashing into a pole. The hood dented inward. Steam rose in a hissing cloud.

  Annie ran a few faltering steps forward then stopped as the front door of a house opposite the crashed car opened. A man st
rode out dressed only in sweatpants, carrying a pistol. He began to shoot at the crashed vehicle, and Annie ducked in panic behind a fence.

  Heart hammering, she waited for the shots to abate before risking a look. When she poked her head up, Greg floored the accelerator again, and the car sped out of view. Sweatpants Man jogged back into his house.

  The other gunman still stood in the street. As Greg’s car moved away, he howled in frustration and whacked himself in the side of his head with the gun. Once. Twice. Blood spurted then dripped down the side of his face to run off his chin.

  Annie cowered beside the fence, locked in place, nowhere seeming safe to move to. The gunman turned, and she stared—helpless—as the barrel of the gun swung toward her then away.

  He backtracked his steps to a vehicle stopped at an angle on the road, the front door gaping open. He jumped into the driver’s seat. For a moment, his head twisted, eyes rolling wildly from side to side. Then the vehicle accelerated forward, tracing the path Greg had laid down, Giving chase.

  What the fuck is going on?

  A new burst of gunfire—farther down the road—propelled Annie back into action. She fled back to her house, slamming the front door closed. Clicking the lock into place, she pressed her back to the wall. Every muscle tensed, mind grasping for normality, hoping to wake up from this confused nightmare.

  #

  “We can’t take your call at this time. Please hang up and try again.”

  “No,” Annie said, the denial changing nothing. It was the fifth time she’d called only to receive the same message.

  “Thank you for calling 9-1-1 emergency.”

  Annie threw the phone against the wall and balled her fists in frustration. She crossed to the window and jerked aside the cream lace concealer curtain to check the driveway. Still empty. The curtain tore at the edge from the force she used to pull it back into place.

  Why would 9-1-1 issue a recorded message?

  All possible answers perturbed her.