Collapse Fiction: RACE WARS: SEASON SIX: Episodes 31-36: A Time For Choosing Read online

  RACE WARS

  **SEASON SIX**

  Episodes 31-36

  “A TIME FOR CHOOSING”

  D.W. ULSTERMAN

  Copyright © 2015

  All rights reserved.

  http://ulstermanbooks.com/

  WARNING

  These are stories of a highly controversial nature

  READER REACTION TO THE ONGOING RACE WARS SERIES:

  “Brilliant SHTF fiction that is very close to the reality we are now living in.”

  “A great series that keeps you hanging on every page wondering what is going to happen next.”

  “Read, learn, and prepare.”

  “D.W. Ulsterman now ranks among the very best post-apocalyptic survival fiction authors.”

  “A remarkable series that just keeps getting better and better!”

  “Race Wars is a good author becoming a great one.”

  “Very scary because it feels like it is happening today!”

  “Great character development within an exciting plot. Race Wars delivers.”

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR:

  In the short time since the Race Wars series became available the interest and feedback generated has been considerable.

  It is no doubt a controversial subject but one I feel has been handled with an obligation of fair warning to those who share with so many others the concerns over the dangerous abyss America now finds itself staring down into. Hopefully – and I mean this sincerely, we ALL step back from that precipice and do some serious reconsideration regarding the path this nation has been on in recent years and the country we hope to leave future generations.

  RACE WARS is conjecture based upon fact. I take little pleasure in creating a frightening world that so closely mirrors the actual one, but it is done as much out of a sense of duty as it is one of creative enterprise.

  I pray (often) that the world depicted in this ongoing series does not come to pass.

  Hope for the best.

  Prepare for the worst…

  -D.W. Ulsterman

  NOTE: If you have not yet read the RACE WARS: SEASONS 1-5 OMNIBUS, you can do so: HERE

  EPISODE THIRTY-ONE:

  Ripper always enjoyed taking a woman regardless of the situation. Hell, he cared even less about the woman herself.

  The ones that screamed and cried from beginning to end though were particularly special to him. He delighted in their overwhelming fear and loathing, the smell of quickly approaching terror as they realized what he intended to have done to them.

  She was no more than fourteen or fifteen, a not yet fully ripe bit of fruit. Short dark hair sat above a plain, unremarkable face, but the eyes were nice. Large, deep brown, and bathed in tears.

  Half of the light pink sweatshirt had already been torn from her right shoulder. Next would be the tight blue jeans that promised the firm, as yet undiscovered delights beneath.

  “Come here, honey, this won’t hurt a bit.”

  Ripper could hear an assortment of men behind him murmuring their approval. They would have their turn soon enough and they knew it, wanted it, and grew impatient for the girl to be given over to them.

  She was Native American, the only daughter of two parents who lay in the road already dead at the hands of Ripper’s gang. They had found her inside the single-wide mobile home, hiding underneath her bed. The desolate trailer park was all but abandoned, but Lita’s parents were determined to stay despite the power having been off for nearly three weeks, the water supply tainted, and food becoming increasingly scarce. They feared travel upon the open roads and so instead, remained inside their home and praying some semblance of normalcy would return to the world around them.

  That normalcy never arrived, but rather hell arrived in its place.

  “I said come here you tasty little bitch.”

  Lita was little more than a trembling wisp of a girl, not yet fully formed, and suffering from a slight touch of autism that had made it difficult for her to make friends. Most of her days were spent reading in her room, where the lives upon the pages became her own and she could pretend, at least for a moment, to be something much greater than the shy and awkward thing she really was.

  Ripper lunged, encircling his sinewy-strong arms around her back and drawing her close. It was that flesh on flesh contact that made her scream even louder than when she watched her mother and father’s heads disintegrate, the result of several assault rifle rounds shot into the back of their skulls at close range.

  “Yeah, go on and scream. I like it! Get loud for me!”

  Ripper’s teeth clamped down over the top of the girl’s left ear with enough force he drew blood. It was a sexual affectation he had developed while in prison. He had taken many men inside those walls, and drew blood more often than not.

  The girl screamed and struggled for a moment longer and then suddenly went completely still, her mind retreating behind some impenetrable wall from which Ripper would not be able to reach her.

  Ripper cared nothing for her mind, though. His interests were of a more animalistic nature.

  His eyes narrowed slightly as he noted the girl’s odd, near-catatonic state and then he leaned down to lick the salty, still slightly warm blood that had collected inside the delicate curves of the girl’s injured ear.

  Ripper turned to glance at the flinty-eyed men crowded around him. With the Beast dispatched on a quest to locate Preacher, Ripper was free to once again reassert himself as the dominant force over the still-growing group of unruly bikers. The shared rape of some worthless Indian girl would serve him well in that task.

  “You all look real hungry for some sloppy seconds!”

  A testosterone-drenched roar of approval rose over the throng of bikers. It was music to Ripper’s ears.

  It was their approval and approval meant allegiance.

  Now all that remained was the deliciously brief and savage task of ripping the young girl in two.

  Ripper’s acrid-plagued mouth widened into a wolfish grin as he grabbed the remaining half of Lita’s shirt and prepared to rip it from her body as she remained silent and still, her eyes unblinking, her face devoid of all emotion.

  And then chaos ensued.

  Several angry shouts turned to alarmed cries and then terrified screams as the unmistakable crackle of gunfire erupted. Just above the din of gunfire was the roar of an engine.

  Ripper’s hand fell from the girl’s shirt as he watched bodies flying into the air and yet more bodies scrambling to get out of the way.

  What the hell?

  It was an older, green automobile bashing aside men and motorcycles as its driver made his way directly toward where Ripper stood snarling his outrage at the interruption of his play time. An arm extended outside the driver’s door holding a handgun and firing several warning shots into the air.

  It was then that Ripper heard the driver’s warning cry.

  “I got a bomb! The whole car is wired up! Get back or I blow all of you to hell!”

  Ripper grabbed a rifle from one of the men standing closest to him and aimed it at the partially hidden figure behind the windshield.

  “You shoot and we all go boom, asshole!”

  The bikers who had so recently gathered around Ripper to watch his rape of the girl took several steps backwards leaving Ripper alone with Lita who remained seemingly oblivious to the chaos that surrounded her.

  “You messed with the wrong guy, asshole. I’m gonna piss in your skull and then drag it behind my bike for the next hundred miles.”

  The driver
’s voice was abnormally confident given the circumstances.

  “There’s one of you, and hundreds of us. You’re a dead man.”

  Several bikers were left moaning on the ground in the destructive path left by the old Ford’s entrance, the result of having been pummeled by good old American steel.

  “That may be so, but there are enough explosives in here to take you and a whole pile of you worthless shitheads with me.”

  I smell pig.

  A life of crime had given Ripper opportunity time to develop an internal warning of when law enforcement was around, and the middle-aged man behind the wheel of the old Ford was giving him that very signal.

  “He’s bluffing. Just shoot him!”

  Before the gang could comply with Ripper’s order, a loud explosion catapulted a tall ball of fire toward the sky some two hundred yards behind them.

  “See, I’m not bluffing! That was just a sample of what’s gonna happen if you try and take me out! I’m holding a dead man’s switch in my right hand! Now we’re gonna do this nice and easy, ok? All I want is for you to let that girl go. Bring her on over and sit her in the car. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  Several sets of eyes looked back and forth between the Ford and the black smoke billowing up from the recent explosion behind them. It was enough to make Ripper reconsider his initial order to just kill the intruder.

  “Why do you care what happens to the girl?”

  The driver’s voice indicated his impatience. He recognized Ripper’s attempt to stall.

  “You have ten seconds or we all go boom. Let her go.”

  “If you do that, she dies too.”

  Ripper smiled to himself, thinking he had effectively called the unknown driver’s bluff.

  “A quick death is a hell of a lot better than what you pricks had in mind for her. I’m fine with that. You have five seconds.”

  The smile vanished from Ripper’s pock-marked face as the bikers continued to back away from the Ford.

  “Let the dumb bitch go.”

  Lita looked up into Ripper’s eyes, her self-awareness suddenly reignited by the prospect of escape. She turned halfway to look at the old Ford and then turned back at Ripper, seemingly uncertain as to the possibility she was really going to be allowed to leave.

  Ripper pointed toward the car.

  “Go!”

  Lita scrambled backwards and then ran to the Ford’s passenger door and opened it. She paused to look at the lean-faced, older man staring back at her. He gave a quick, reassuring smile and then whispered for her to get in.

  “It’ll be all right. I won’t hurt you, but we gotta get going.”

  The driver looked through the windshield and saw Ripper glaring back at him. He knew a few more seconds of indecision by the girl might remove the last remnants of his deception and leave them both in serious trouble. He looked back at Lita, making certain to keep his voice calm so as to hopefully convince her it was in her best interests to get into the car.

  “Just get in and we’ll drive on out of here.”

  Lita stepped into the vehicle and closed the door. The driver slipped the shifter into reverse and watched as several bikers scrambled to get out of the way. Then he slammed the car into drive and pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor as the Ford jumped onto the narrow, paved street that dissected the middle of the trailer park and led to the main road a quarter mile away.

  A quick glance into the rearview mirror confirmed what the driver had feared would happen was happening. The biker gang quickly recovered from the shock of his sudden appearance and was preparing to open fire in the direction of Ford’s departure.

  There must be fifty of them holding brand new AK-47s. Where the hell would scum like that get so many of those kinds of weapons?

  “I think it best you get down on the floor, young lady.”

  Lita did as she was told, sensing the man intended her no harm while also recognizing the fear in his voice despite his attempts to conceal it from her.

  The sound of gunfire ripped the air apart behind them.

  Thank God they don’t know how to aim.

  The driver veered sharply to the left, momentarily leaving the paved road before suddenly turning back to the right. The Ford’s ancient engine whined its disapproval as the wheel shuddered in the driver’s hands, the result of a barely functioning suspension and a pair of warped front tires. They passed the remnants of the gas can the driver had used as a makeshift bomb to provide the ruse that had the bikers thinking he did in fact possess explosives. The bomb was nothing more than a partially full gas can with a small puncture in its top covered by gunpowder he extracted from some of the bullets he possessed. He created a long trail of powder leading away from the gas can, lit it, and drove as quickly as he could toward the gang.

  And damn if it didn’t work!

  The highway revealed itself just a few hundred yards ahead as several bullets ricocheted off of the car’s rust-covered roof. The metallic hissing sound made Lita cry out as she brought both her hands up to her head and covered her ears.

  The car turned sharply to the right, and then as it had done before, veered back onto the road.

  Almost there.

  The driver looked into the rearview mirror again and saw the gang preparing to follow on their motorcycles.

  Good, come and get me you shits.

  The Ford lurched onto the main road as the driver pulled the wheel sharply to the right, keeping the car on the packed gravel shoulder and avoiding the paved road itself. He mashed down upon the accelerator as Lita continued to hold her hands tightly over her ears. Only until he had travelled another hundred yards did the driver move the vehicle from the shoulder and onto the pavement where he then continued travelling at speeds he estimated to be nearly seventy miles an hour while silently praying none of the tires had a blowout.

  The rearview mirror revealed a glimmering mass of chrome-plated motorcycles preparing to turn onto the main road as well. The Ford’s driver slowed down to a less urgent pace which in turn smoothed the car’s violently shaking frame into a merely trembling one.

  He watched as the first row of bikes suddenly swerved violently and then tipped over, followed by the bikes in back slamming into the grounded bikes in front as tire after tire was punctured by the hundreds of short, thick upholstery nails he had found earlier in a box that had been left in a corner of the Ford’s trunk that he then used to scatter across the dark pavement. Within seconds, the road was an angry mass of bent bike frames and broken and bruised human bodies.

  It was a sight that brought a cold, satisfied smile to the Ford driver’s face.

  That’ll buy us a little time.

  Lita had risen up from the floor on the passenger side and turned to look back at the mess being left behind them. Knowing several of the bikers were now suffering in pain brought a smile to her face too.

  The teenaged, light brown-skinned girl then turned back around and sat staring at the quickly passing scenery outside the Ford’s windows. She knew her parents to be dead, but that terrible fact had not yet fully overtaken her reality. For Lita, it was still something of an odd and frightening dream from which she assumed she would eventually wake up from.

  She turned her head to the left at the sound of the stranger clearing his throat and took a moment to fully assess his appearance. He was tall, lean, with a head of thinning, unkept grayish hair and eyes framed by deep crows feet. Behind those eyes was an undeniable sadness that Lita found more comforting than concerning. It was a sadness that spoke of a man capable of feeling pain – a look that had been absent in the eyes of the bikers they had so recently escaped from.

  The driver glanced down at Lita and smiled and then slowly extended his right hand toward her.

  “Hello there, my name is Tom – Tom Dolan.”

  Lita remained silent, but the tearful smile she responded with said plenty as she placed her hand into the warm, rough-skinned interior of Tom Dolan’s and shook it lightly. />
  She knew she was in the presence of a good man. Lita refused to let Tom’s hand go, preferring instead to keep holding it next to her in the space between them on the car seat.

  Tom didn’t mind. For the first time since his family’s murder, he almost felt like a human being again.

  If I do just one more thing right in this world, it’ll be to keep this girl safe.

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