Nuclear Winter | Book 2 | First Spring Read online

  First Spring

  Book Two of

  Nuclear Winter

  By

  Nathan Jones

  A continuation of the story in

  the Best Laid Plans series.

  Copyright © 2017 Nathan Jones

  All rights reserved.

  The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional. While most locations are real some creative license has been taken in describing them, and a few locations are entirely fictional.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Turmoil

  “Hold!” Sergeant Berthold screamed. “Anybody who acts before I give the order gets my boot so far up where the sun don't shine you'll be spitting leather!”

  Raul Gutierrez barely heard him. The roar of the crowd had been replaced by a distant rushing in his ears. Like being underneath the surf that one time he'd visited the beach near San Diego, except muted like he was going deaf, and with a ringing in the background like the temporary tinnitus he'd gotten a few times after shooting without ear protection.

  Who knew, maybe his ears were screwed up. It was certainly noisy enough.

  This was his first deployment, and he was facing a riot. Which might not be as bad as urban combat in the ME back before Israel and Iran nuked each other, at least from the stories he'd heard from soldiers who'd served there. But here in the thick of things this certainly seemed like his worst nightmare.

  He wasn't facing some political protest gone out of control, assuming it had ever been in control to begin with. The mass of people crowding Salt Lake City's Capitol Hill were starving and there'd be no food coming for them any time soon, and they knew it.

  They scared the blazes out of him.

  Raul didn't know if they all would've been crowding the State Capitol building if his relief unit wasn't staged here, partly because it was a convenient location and partly to protect the building. But his unit was, and the crowd was, and now he and his squad were in full riot gear in a line across the entrance with the rest of the unit, formed up two deep and feeling flimsy compared to the raging sea of humanity in front of them.

  He was on the front line, nothing but a plexiglass shield between him and dozens of reaching hands, pale faces twisted with rage and fear. He had all sorts of nonlethal toys to work with if those people decided to try something, and the unit's vehicles parked behind the lines loomed over everyone with even bigger nonlethal weapons, noise cannons and high pressure water hoses and tear gas.

  But if that mob decided to come all at once the sheer force of bodies would push right through the line without much difficulty, even if they incapacitated half the rioters in the process. They'd have no choice but to withdraw to the vehicles, probably getting knocked down and trampled on the way, and make islands of protection around them.

  At which point the Capitol building would be toast, along with all their supplies inside.

  FETF administrators with bullhorns were up on the roofs of trucks shouting at the crowd, trying to reason with them. Raul had a feeling they were at best completely ineffective, at worst actually making things worse by giving the mindless mob specific targets to focus their aggression on. And considering the current state of things and how little was being done to fix them, FETF didn't have many fans at the moment.

  A hand reached around his shield and grabbed his shoulder. Raul tried to shrug the rioter off while at the same time shoving with his shield, and on the other side of the plexiglass the face attached to the hand snarled in determination as the man kept his grip. Raul grit his teeth and freed one hand long enough to tear the fingers loose, probably breaking some in the process judging by the scream.

  The guy fell back clutching his hand, and the press in his immediate area backed up a step, giving Raul and his buddies a bit more breathing room.

  “I said hold!” Berthold screamed. Raul jumped guiltily and looked over, but the noncom was glaring at someone else.

  A few moments later he heard shouts down the line. The surging crowd had pushed up against the soldiers there, forcing them back as they shouted warnings and finally began shooting streams of pepper spray. But Raul could see that the desperate people mashed up against the shields wouldn't have been able to back off even if they wanted to; this riot was worse than the most violent mosh pit, a living amorphous blob that ebbed and flowed like the tide and forced individuals within it to go where it pushed them.

  Raul was sure people were being trampled somewhere in that mess, or even suffocated by the sheer press of bodies. He had to wonder what kind of idiots would willingly join this sort of chaos; if he saw a riot in progress he'd run, not walk, the other way. Even if he was inclined to break things and cause trouble, which he wasn't, he sure wouldn't do it with a bunch of people who were using being part of the crowd as their excuse for completely turning off their conscience and inhibitions.

  Then again, he was one of the few hundred soldiers who were trying to hold those thousands of people back, so who was the real idiot here?

  Somewhere he heard the rush of liquid as one of the hoses was turned on the crowd. He could see the arc of highly pressurized water streaming from one of the vehicles behind him, falling into the crowd somewhere near the middle, but he couldn't see what had prompted the response.

  “-are officially ordering you to disperse!” the FETF pencil-neck nearest him was shouting into his bullhorn. “Failure to do so will result in disciplinary measures!”

  Berthold cursed. “Okay boys, this is getting out of hand. Spray the front rows . . . maybe that'll get this herd stampeding the other way.”

  Raul dutifully fumbled for his pepper spray and raised it over his shield, sending targeted squirts at the faces of the nearest rioters. Around him more streams hissed out and dozens of people in the crowd screamed, flailed around, and fell to the ground clutching their faces.

  At which point the crowd surged over them, trampling those they couldn't step around and pressing against the line once again. Raul swore, forced a step backwards by the weight of bodies on his shield. Even if his squad tried to help those fallen people it would just get them swarmed and trampled as well.

  The rioters pushing against him and his buddies were pissed. They'd seen their friends get pepper sprayed and weren't having any of it. A rain of fists rattled across the line of shields, and he saw projectiles flying through the air, rocks and bottles and even a few smart phones that weren't getting much use these days.

  Behind him the bullhorn sent out a pained and outraged squawk as the administrator was hit. Raul caught a glimpse of him falling out of the corner of his eye. In response to that, or maybe just because of the escalating chaos, the unit's vehicles began letting loose on the crowd with everything they had.

  He heard the whump of tear gas canisters being fired into the surging mass of people, trailing smoke overhead. Berthold was screaming for them to get their gas masks on, and Raul fumbled for the one ha
nging around his neck. What felt like minutes passed as he tried to fasten it one-handed, while the other hand tried to hold a shield with the weight of a few hundred pounds of bodies behind it.

  Then things really went downhill.

  From the indecipherable cacophony over his radio, half of it noncoms and officers screaming for everyone else to clear the airwaves, he heard reports that the line had been breached in at least three different locations. Rioters had also begun breaking into the Capitol building through windows and side entrances to either side of the line, overwhelming the soldiers stationed inside to guard the interior.

  The press against Raul's shield abruptly knocked him backwards, and before he could regain his balance bodies pushed around him to either side. Raul emptied his pepper spray at every face that didn't have a gas mask on, then yanked out his baton and began flailing at the limbs tearing at him.

  Somehow he and his squad managed to firm up their portion of the line, getting back into formation with their shields holding back the crowd. But they were quickly becoming an island in a sea of angry humanity, surrounded on three sides. Before too long they'd be getting pressed from behind as well.

  “This has gone FUBAR!” Berthold shouted, trying and failing to cover fear with anger. “Tear gas!”

  Raul dropped to one knee with his shield, his buddies on the front line following suit. Behind them their squad mates on the back line unslung their M4s and began firing tear gas grenades from the attached M203 launchers. One shot over his head and into the crowd less than ten feet away, probably injuring whoever it impacted before creating a clear patch of spreading gas the mob swirled around, while inside it people flailed and fell to the ground choking and coughing.

  From the unfocused noise on his radio one voice abruptly cut over the rest. “Shots fired from within the crowd!”

  Now that he was aware of them Raul could pick them up. Single shots, semi-auto. Small caliber rifle or possibly pistol. Hard to pinpoint a source, but he was in the thick of it so he'd trust his fellow soldier's call.

  These idiots weren't just rushing the line and chucking bottles, they were firing shots. This was going to get ugly fast.

  “That's our cue, gentlemen!” Berthold roared. “Fall back to our ride!”

  About time.

  Even with the tear gas and braced on one knee with his shield Raul was still getting shoved around, and the line was moments from breaking. His squad mates in the back line administered a liberal stream of pepper spray and fired off a few more gas grenades, buying him breathing room to stumble to his feet.

  At his side his buddy Marco started to rise, then staggered back as a heavyset rioter bodily threw himself into the top of the soldier's shield. They both started to go down, and Raul clumsily reached around his shield to catch his friend, nearly falling over as well in the process.

  The next few minutes were a blur of stumbling, shoving, faces nearly pressed to his gas mask screaming in rage and hate, free hand in a death grip on Marco's combat vest pulling him along. He was so focused on getting away that he almost lurched face-first into his squad's vehicle before he realized they'd reached their destination.

  Berthold caught him and Marco both and shoved them back into some semblance of a protective line around the truck itself. As Raul turned back to face the mob he noticed the vehicle's windshield was a spiderweb of cracks and there was a rioter sprawled across the hood, unconscious or dead.

  Raul had lost his baton assisting Marco, which left him with the choice of pulling out his combat folder and stabbing folks or swapping to support with his last canister of pepper spray and a few stun grenades. He hadn't been issued an M203 for his M4, and this nightmare was going to have to get a whole lot worse, or require orders to do so, before he started firing bullets into a crowd of civilians. Even rioting ones.

  It turned out to be a nonissue. One of the soldiers stationed in the vehicle tossed him down a shotgun marked to indicate it was dedicated to firing beanbags, as well as a bandolier of those rounds. Raul dropped his shield and raised the weapon to fire off a shot, hitting a rioter charging him square in the solar plexus. The man dropped like a ton of bricks at his feet. He racked another round and hit the guy behind him, then whipped the butt out to clobber a guy who was going for Marco in the side of the head.

  Drops in a bucket. For every threat he neutralized five more took their place. The truck was surrounded, and he heard thuds where rioters had gotten through to the vehicle and were pounding on the reinforced windows and armored sides howling like berserk apes. Which was only slightly above the general noise level of this chaos.

  In the back of Raul's mind a little voice was screaming that he was going to die. Basic and a bit of on-base supplemental training wasn't enough to prepare him for this, mentally or skill-wise.

  But he wasn't about to fail his buddies. He kept going, emptying the shotgun's internal magazine into the crowd of bodies in front of him. Then he used it like a club to batter away flailing arms and clutching hands. The truck was clearing away swaths in the crowd with more tear gas, but even spraying practically on top of masked friendlies wasn't enough to completely relieve the press.

  A warning screamed in Raul's mind as he caught a flash of metal out of the corner of his eye. Too late . . . he felt a solid impact to his chest, a knife thrust at him from somewhere within the mob. One of the plates in his vest turned it away, but before he could react the flailing rioter threw himself on top of Marco and dragged him to the ground with the help of two other men.

  Raul desperately clubbed at their backs with the shotgun as he saw the knife rise and plunge over and over. Time seemed to slow as the weapon finally came away red, accompanied by a spray of blood.

  Too much blood, obviously a major artery.

  With a berserk scream of his own Raul slammed the butt of his shotgun into the back of the knifeman's head. He heard a solid crunch that didn't bode well for the rioter, who fell on top of Marco twitching as Raul kicked the other two men away.

  “Sarge!” he yelled, voice cracking in grief. “Medic!”

  No medic came in the confusion, but Berthold did. The sergeant organized the nearest squad mates into a box around the fallen soldier as he knelt to shove aside the limp rioter and check on him. Raul turned his own focus to holding back the crowd.

  Behind him Berthold cursed. “Got him in the neck between helmet and vest!” he snarled. “There's nothing we can do.”

  As the sergeant rose to his feet Raul stared past him at Marco's twitching body in frozen horror. He was barely aware of Berthold bellowing practically in his ear.

  “Screw crowd control, we're switching to deadly force! Open fire!”

  Raul could practically guarantee that the authorization to use deadly force on US citizens hadn't come from higher up with FETF. Assuming there were even Fed-Ups with the cojones to stick around in this nightmare who could give the order.

  But he didn't care as he hurled his shotgun at the face of the nearest rioter, unslung his M4, and thumbed off the safety. At this point it was either him and his buddies or the rioters, and with the sergeant's go-ahead that was an easy calculation to make.

  He could already hear the sound of burst fire around him, and as he opened fire himself he heard the sawing roar of the mounted machine gun on the vehicle behind him tear a line through the crowd. The idiots in that mob who'd started firing first were probably regretting their decision at this point.

  Or, more likely if they'd been the first to draw fire, weren't.

  Just long enough to make them back off, Raul told himself as he sprayed bursts in front of him, trying not to look at who he was shooting at. Later on he knew he'd be sickened by what he'd had to do here, but for now he just had to do it.

  It didn't take long for the riot to stumble to a halt in the face of withering gunfire from the embattled soldiers. But it took long enough. Too long.

  Raul felt only numbness as the press of bodies in front of him gradually thinned, then finally t
he rioters fled in all directions leaving their wounded and dead behind. Berthold was calling orders to secure the perimeter and check the wounded, but even as Raul moved to comply his mind was an empty, buzzing blank.

  This one was over, but there would be more; FETF didn't have the fuel to bring in supplies for everyone who needed them. Even if they could, distributing those supplies in this chaos would be next to impossible. It had been less than two weeks since the Gulf burned, but Salt Lake City was already being torn apart by looting and rioting.

  There were even roving gangs straight up going building to building and taking anything of value, and neither the police nor the Armed Forces elements brought in to assist had the manpower to stop them. He could only imagine how bad it was in locations where FETF hadn't brought in soldiers to keep the peace.

  The nightmare had only begun.

  * * * * *

  Raul stood to put another log on the fire.

  He kept it burning low when he could, relying on warm clothes and blankets to make up the difference. Shared body heat would've been nice, but that wasn't really an option. At least he'd built his little cabin tight, a small space that was easy to heat and kept out the cold of nuclear winter pretty well.

  He hadn't been asleep, although even if he had been he wouldn't suffer from nightmares. Not too frequently, at least.

  No, it was his own conscious decision to spend sleepless hours dwelling on the past, the things he'd done and the choices he'd made. Not much else to do confined to this tiny space for what was probably going to be over half a year until spring.

  There were definitely things he regretted, mostly while he'd been with Ferris. Sins of omission for the most part, atrocities he hadn't even tried to stop in the knowledge that doing so would've certainly gotten him killed and wouldn't have helped anyone.

  Or so he told himself.

  But the riots haunted him more, even if he'd been following orders, even if he'd been defending himself and his fellow soldiers and all the innocent civilians who otherwise would've been caught up in the violence. They'd happened near the beginning, when he could still remember a world that wasn't insane, which was what made them so bad.