White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (best color ebook reader .txt) 📕

the most powerful man in the state as things stood. On the other hand, he had learned of a new threat: a force that could wipe them all off the map.

New friends. New enemies. A new army in the ‘hood.

Just another day in the apocalypse.

Ross Homestead

Oakwood, Utah

“Trust me, this is a lesson I learned the hard way,” Jeff shouted. The windows of the office wing rattled a little in their frames. A woman outside slowed down, realized who was arguing, then took off like her coffee had kicked in.

“You can’t intimidate me into changing my opinion. So you can lower your damned voice, if you please,” Jason scowled.

Jeff could feel his face flushing with blood and he knew his bald head had gone bright red. He hated that his face did that. It made him a shitty poker player.

Jeff implored, with his hands balled into fists, “I don’t know how to say this so you understand. If we don’t recon outside the wire and if we don’t make friends with the indigenous people, we’re going to get ass-reamed. Out of the two guys in this room, only one of us has been to actual war.”

“What??” Jason shouted. “I’ve been to war—jacko—and these exact same Mormon SOBs you want to handhold stood me up like an ugly prom date. Both times.”

The insult drew Jeff back to calm. Sometimes, you either killed a man or let it slide. If he wasn’t going to kill Jason Ross, then he’d let it slide all the way. No need for civil disorder inside the Homestead too.

Jeff held his hands out and brought his voice back to a conversational level. “I hear what you’re saying. I do. Don’t forget, I took rounds in that fiasco too. Pour yourself a drink and let me tell you a story. Please. With a cherry on top. One story.”

Ross made no move to pour himself a drink. The half-empty booze bottles were lined up on his desk like an amber army, and Jeff wondered where Ross was getting whiskey this far into the apocalypse. But Ross’ drinking was a problem for another day.

Jason drilled Jeff with his marble green eyes, but he said nothing, so Jeff proceeded.

“Early in the Global War On Terror, I worked in a forward operating base in Kandahar. We ran the same modus operandi you’re advocating here—we holed up inside the walls of the FOB and let the savages tear each other apart. We only went outside when we had clear intel on a target, and then only for the assault.”

Jeff got up, stepped around the desk and poured himself a finger of whiskey.

“One day, SIGINT got a location on a Taliban operative and sent it over. Lo-and-behold, the bastard was camped literally against our wall. His tents was like fifteen feet from our back gate. We hit him the same night and guess what we found?”

Jason shrugged.

“We found a metric ton of intel on Taliban all around our FOB, plus enough explosives to breach our gate. If they had hit us, there wouldn’t have been shit we could do about it. We had no way of knowing we were already surrounded, out-gunned and hemmed in. We couldn’t use our predator drones and gunships to shoot inside our own base.”

Jeff took a sip and continued.

“From then on, we ran regular patrols into the villages. We chewed the fat with the locals and the elders almost daily. Most of the Afghans weren’t Taliban, they were just villagers. After a while, the elders would say, ‘some guys just moved in down the street. We don’t like those guys.’ That was their way of telling us that the new dudes were Taliban and that we should put the smackdown on them.”

Jeff stepped back to his chair. “I get it, Jason. The Mormon neighbors haven’t been worth a damn so far, but they haven’t been shooting at us, either. They do have half-decent leadership. They needed a little time to figure out that we can be trusted. A good leader doesn’t commit his forces until he knows the landscape and knows his allies.”

Jason poured himself half a glass. “I still don’t like it at all,” he seemed to concede for the moment. “I think we should let the Mormons handle themselves and we should pour our effort into building a big, thick wall around this place. Screw them. Screw everyone outside the Homestead. Trying to help them is a total waste. We don’t have enough of anything to waste it.”

“It’s not without risk,” Jeff admitted. “But I don’t think you understand the risk of not keeping tabs on our Area of Operation.”

Jason shook his head. “You say it like it’s all about recon, but I know you actually want to help the Mormons out of this shit sandwich. You’ve got a hard on for being a pal to them now. But that’s twice they’ve let us down: once with the gangbangers and again with the mob. I think the jury’s decided on this question: helping anyone outside of the Homestead is going to get more people killed. Mark my words.”

Jeff didn’t know what else to say. Ross wasn’t entirely wrong. Helping the Mormon neighbors was risky. Jeff wasn’t normally the guy to invite everyone around a campfire to sing kum-ba-yah. Usually, he was the one circling the wagons and telling everyone outside the family circle to get lost.

Something had changed, though. Jeff had been wrong about a long list of things in this apocalypse. He’d been gut shot, sprawled out on the pavement and had spent a lot of time in la-la land being cut up and sewn back together. Being gutted humbled a man. And on top of all that, there were the dreams.

Perhaps you’d consider fighting for me… I’m the brother of your brothers.

As a rule, Jeff didn’t believe in such nonsense. He left it to the officers to wonder about the purpose of a mission. Enlisted men executed. They conquered. They hit compounds and punched