The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Read online

  Chains of Tyranny

  The Jared Chronicles - Book Three

  Rick Tippins

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright ©2020 Rick Tippins

  Published by: Doomsday Press, a division of Beyond The Fray, LLC

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-953462-11-4

  Doomsday Press, a division of Beyond The Fray, LLC, San Diego, CA

  www.doomsdaybooks.com

  To the Marines and Corpsman of

  3rd Battalion 1st Marines

  The Thundering Third

  Chapter 1

  With the sound of the Black Hawk waning in the distance, Jared turned and stormed wordlessly into the ranch house, leaving his group of friends standing in stunned silence. Shannon was the first to move after Jared, following him inside, where she found him in a bedroom he had until a moment ago shared with John.

  “You can’t just leave. You have responsibilities here,” Shannon tersely admonished.

  Jared was packing his gear as he shook his head in stubborn defiance, refusing to meet Shannon’s steadfast gaze.

  “You’re just going to leave Essie?” she pressed, her tone divulging what her reaction would be if Jared’s answer were in the affirmative.

  This halted Jared’s angry packing initiative, draining the strength from his legs, causing him to sink to the floor, where he rocked back and forth on his knees. Slowly he lifted his chin until his eyes met Shannon’s fiery stare. Jared’s mouth twitched as tears began to form in his tired eyes. “What am I supposed to do, Shannon?”

  The moment the military men had walked John away from the ranch house toward the waiting helicopter not five minutes before, Jared began formulating plan after plan on how to either stop what happened or bring John back to their group. In the end, his best plan was ambiguous at best and he knew it. To have intervened today certainly would have resulted in the death of some if not all of Jared’s friends. To go and attempt a rescue with the meager resources at Jared’s disposal was ludicrous and suicidal at best, making him feel impotent in a world where strength preordained everything.

  Shannon stood staring at Jared for a moment, her mind twisting and turning, trying to make sense of everything that happened over the last hour. Knowing John was gone and seeing Jared on the floor with tears flowing down his boyish cheeks scared Shannon more than she was willing to admit. If Shannon allowed herself to admit the real gravity of their situation on a daily basis, she would have lived her life paralyzed with fear. Shannon was smart enough to know this and refused to embrace any thoughts that might jeopardize her mental health.

  “Seems like an easy decision to me, Jared. Essie is a seven-year-old girl while John is a full-grown, highly trained soldier. I know what John would want you to do,” Shannon added for good measure, which wasn’t needed.

  Jared’s chin dropped as he looked around the room. John was the second close friend Jared had lost in less than a month’s time, and although Jared hadn’t been much of a people person before a solar flare sparked a disaster that altered the course of planet Earth and all its unlucky denizens, Jared needed people now. More importantly, he required his friends, and without them, he found his world lacking.

  When a man or woman had everything, they tended to take for granted things like personal relationships, but when someone had nothing, they were more inclined to cherish life’s simpler accouterments with a little more fervor. Jared could remember driving past a hamburger stand in the days before the event and not thinking twice about it. Now he would have gone to extraordinary measures to experience the pleasures of eating a hamburger. People tend to seek fulfillment in life no matter their predicament. Before the event, Jared had achieved a form of self-nirvana through his work. Now that his job was nothing more than a memory, Jared unconsciously sought to fill that vacancy in his life with the company of other humans, something he hadn’t done before the solar flare.

  After Shannon’s lecture, Jared realized he couldn’t leave Essie behind. After all—wasn’t it he who had taken the girl under his wing after her parents succumbed to the post-event violence? The moment Jared removed Essie from the bloody scene inside her home, he assumed the same responsibilities her parents assumed when they had Essie.

  Jared slowly rocked his head back, locking eyes with Shannon, who stood over him, her stare unflinching. He pursed his lips before pulling his legs under himself and rising to his full height. “You’re right, I can’t just run off. John left us instructions, which means he must think he can get back to us.”

  Shannon nodded, turned, and walked out, leaving Jared alone in the room with his thoughts and doubts. It seemed lately he harbored far more of the latter than anything else. Jared stood surveying the room along with the gear John had left behind when he was taken by what appeared to be a military presence not far from the ranch house. Jared corrected this thought since not far didn’t amount to the same thing it had months before when cars, planes and trains all traversed the earth’s surface to the tune of millions of miles per day at speeds that were quite simply not obtainable now.

  In actuality, the military presence was in Stockton, which Jared figured would take days to reach on foot or horseback. Sure, he could drive the VW bug, but the likelihood of his being attacked along the way was exceedingly high, so that option was off the table. Suddenly Jared felt foolish for not thinking his situation through entirely. Essie was undoubtedly shaken by the thought of his leaving, while the rest of the men and women were likely questioning his sanity.

  Jared moved to the front of the house, where he saw everyone standing in the front yard while Shannon spoke softly, trying to reassure them all. Their group was an eclectic one at best. Shannon had been a schoolteacher, while Calvin, the old man in the bunch at close to seventy years in age, had run a small ranch before the solar flare. Carlos was the newest addition to their group and had worked as a landscaper while raising his ten-year-old son, Salvador, as a single father.

  Barry was another of their group, who hailed from Silicon Valley’s elite. Barry had previously accompanied John and Jared on a three-man expedition to acquire solar equipment when they’d found Claire and Stephani tied to a wall i
nside a biker compound. The second youngest member of their little community was Devon, a teen who before the event had been an outcast in school, not quite finding his place, a kid who played video games and enjoyed few if any friends. With John’s mentoring, the teen was proving quite valuable to the security of the community. Essie rounded out their little community and was only seven years old. Jared had found the girl after her parents were brutally murdered by gang members less than two months after the solar flare.

  Essie was the main reason Jared couldn’t run off half-cocked. She was his responsibility, and he couldn’t very well ask someone else in the community to watch after the girl while he ran around trying to save a dying world. The little group also had a small Jack Russell terrier they’d named Crank, whom Jared was still trying to figure out. The dog had originally been John’s idea as an added security measure in an effort to ease some of those duties from the tired shoulders of the community. So far, the dog only cleaned the scraps from their plates and chased squirrels, but he seemed to be growing attached to Devon and spent a considerable amount of time at the teen’s side.

  It took the group two days to pack the trailer, car and several horses with what they needed to start a new life away from the prying eyes of whoever took John. During the first day after John’s departure, Calvin noticed a subtle change in the new girl Claire. He watched the young woman as she helped the others pack, noticing she was growing considerably withdrawn. When the community came together to eat, Claire remained outside any conversation and demonstrated physical signs of retreating inside herself, eyes downcast, arms folded when she wasn’t using them, and posture that screamed of unhappiness.

  The first evening after John was taken, Claire sat at the far end of the couch with her legs drawn to her chest and her long slender arms wrapped around them. She smiled when appropriate, but Calvin was fairly sure no one else in the group saw what he was seeing. One thing was certain, the girl was processing something and not in a good way.

  As Calvin worked the following day, he observed Claire seemed even more detached. Claire was still helping with the group’s endeavors to pack and get on the road, but her eyes told Calvin she was slowly tearing away at the connective tissues that tethered her to what she conceivably viewed as a horrible nightmare. Sadly, the nightmare was in fact everyone’s new reality, including her own.

  Calvin was no shrink, but he was an old man who had seen a hell of a lot in his life and knew when a person was beginning to unravel. In Calvin’s view, Claire was well on her way to transforming from a tightly wound ball of yarn to a heap of useless, tangled fiber. Calvin imagined the woman would eventually break free of reality, where she could float safely in a world of catatonic bliss. She would feel safe, unaware of the dangers that surrounded her and the rest of their community. She would undoubtedly be uncaring of the hardships of her present-day life, left to exist in a fairy tale of days gone past.

  Calvin wondered if Claire would stop eating, or if she would simply morph into a burden on the community. He felt a pang of guilt as he pushed this thought from his mind, but the cold hard facts of life here were they couldn’t afford to take care of someone who only took and gave nothing in return. Calvin rolled his shoulders as if this would rid him of the shame he felt. It did nothing of the sort.

  As Claire walked past him, headed back to the house to pick up another load of canned goods, Calvin fell in behind the woman. “How ya doing, Claire?” Calvin called out.

  Claire spun on her heel faster than Calvin would have expected after watching her mope around for the past day and a half.

  “Why do you ask?” she countered with an empty look written on what Calvin could see had once been a pretty face.

  Calvin tried reading Claire’s face, but saw a blankness like he’d never seen from any other human. Her eyes were bankrupt, void of the humanness that differentiates the dancing eyes of a pretty girl from the dead eyes of a great white shark. “You don’t seem yourself, that’s all.”

  Claire deadpanned the older man a moment longer before replying, “How would you know what that is? You’ve only just met me.”

  Calvin thought of responding, but chose to remain taciturn, having already said his piece. The two stared at one another an instant longer before Claire spun on the ball of one foot and walked into the ranch house, leaving Calvin both irritated and concerned for the woman’s well-being. Calvin stood as still as a statue as the rest of the community hustled to load as many of their belongings as they could carry into the tiny VW and onto horseback. He noticed Jared was immersed in the preparations, seemingly unaware of Claire’s change. Calvin would have to talk to Jared about the apparent downward spiral Claire seemed to be in.

  That evening after darkness won over on the day, thwarting any further packing of gear, the group ate and then retired to the living room. Calvin watched as Claire whispered something to Stephani before retiring to one of the back bedrooms. Shannon sat on the couch with Jared and Essie, who pawed at a mostly disengaged and exhausted Jared, while Shannon brushed the girl’s hair. Devon, as usual, slipped out the front door, into the night, where he was both alone and more relaxed than when forced to interact with the rest of the community.

  Carlos and his son, Salvador, sat quietly at the kitchen table while Barry relaxed in an armchair next to the couch. The lights were no longer working since Barry had started the process of dismantling the solar and battery setup, leaving the group to settle for the dancing light of a few candles.

  “Anyone have an idea where we are headed?” Calvin finally asked, breaking the silence.

  Everyone in the house except Jared turned and stared expectantly at Calvin as if his question were rhetorical in nature.

  “There should be plenty of places with no one living in them around here. I mean, we haven’t seen a soul out here, which tells me folks went to town after the event and—well, never made it back home,” Barry piped up.

  Carlos nodded his agreement while Shannon stared at Calvin and then over to Jared, who sat staring blankly at the rifles leaning against the wall next to the front door.

  “John said we should go, so I vote we get out of here as soon as we can and find another place with a couple more bedrooms,” Stephani injected with a sense of urgency bleeding into her tone.

  Calvin nodded his old head slowly as he rubbed his wrinkled face hidden behind a mostly gray beard. He hadn’t worn a beard before the event, but life was just so darn hard these days that adding another nonessential task like shaving to a man’s day was out of the question, in Calvin’s opinion. The beard was here, it was full, and he would likely go to his grave wearing the itchy son of a gun.

  “We should leave tomorrow, scout out a few miles, and find a suitable place,” Calvin added as he tugged on a tuft of beard. The thing bugged the hell out of him, but it gave him something to fidget with when he was deep in thought.

  Jared’s head began to wag, his chin coming up slightly so his eyes leveled with the rest of his friends’ gazes. He drew a deep breath, pursing his lips so hard he almost bit into the lower one. “No, we can’t stay here or anywhere near this place.”

  Carlos, Barry and the two women glanced at Jared, then looked questioningly at Calvin as if he had the final say. Calvin gave Jared a sideways stare, studying the younger man for a moment. Calvin gave Jared enough time to explain himself, and when he didn’t, Calvin bit.

  “Okay, Jared, why shouldn’t we find something close by?”

  Jared didn’t speak immediately, taking his time to study the concerned faces of each and every person seated throughout the living room. Their expressions told Jared his friends were worried about an uncertain future and that they valued what all of them waited for him to say. This sent a chill through Jared as he came to the realization that his decision would set in motion a series of events that with certainty would have one of two outcomes. What he was about to say, if the group followed his suggestion, would either further their group’s ability to survive, or i
t would end in tragedy. Jared was terrified of steering these people toward disaster, but knew he couldn’t sit around lamenting things that hadn’t happened. As a group they must act, and then they would reap whatever came from their endeavors.

  John had impressed on him the importance of making the hard decisions and then living with their outcome. Jared could never argue with the man, whom he’d seen make decisions that had resulted in the death of Dwight not long ago. Jared knew Dwight’s death was not anyone’s fault but the men who’d tried to rob them. John made a decision, Dwight was killed, and the group moved on from the incident. This didn’t mean Jared forgot about the man, it just meant there wasn’t much time in one’s day to bemoan ill fate, which seemed to be a daily visitor.

  “I think we should head north toward the Delta, where we can not only hunt for meat, but fish the waters.”

  The Delta was a series of waterways that attached to the San Pablo Bay on the north end of the San Francisco Bay. Its waterways stretched east for miles, reaching the city of Stockton, where theoretically, one could take a boat all the way back out to the Pacific Ocean. It would have been a long ride, but it could be done.

  Jared singled Shannon out. “The canned food we have won’t last forever.”