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

inward, protecting his face. The bench leg smashed into the back of his neck. The norseman at his back crowed with amusement.

“Every man meets challenges he can’t win,” the norseman laughed. “Can you still fight?”

“Yes,” Jeff winced. The table leg had hammered the boney back of his shaved head with a sharp corner, probably leaving a wound that would require stitches. He could feel the blood coursing down the back of his head, cooling in the morning air.

Jeff’s father-in-law had withdrawn slightly, gathering himself to attack again. The man had no interest in talking. Jeff sheathed his broadsword, which became a heavy impediment, swinging ponderously around his midsection, tangling in his legs and jamming in his ribs as he maneuvered.

“You should let me take this one,” the norseman spoke. “It’s too much.”

“No. He’s my responsibility.”

His father-in-law charged again with the bench leg raised over his head. Jeff grabbed the arm and rabbit punched him in the nose. But the old man persisted, blowing blood-spittle from his nose and mouth as he struggled with Jeff. His breath blew dank and coppery across Jeff’s face.

Jeff’s dangling broadsword dragged between his legs as he fought against the old man, accomplishing nothing more than holding him at bay. The sword and sheath eventually pinioned between Jeff’s right calf and his left thigh, stopping his movement abruptly and sending them both to the ground.

As they fell, Jeff wrapped his arms around the old man and rolled so that he wouldn’t crush him on impact. They both let out woofs as they hit the ground—Jeff underneath and the old man twisting and arching on top of him like an angry, landed fish. The norseman stared down at them and snickered.

The old man fought like a demon, but Jeff’s strength exceeded the old man’s by many times. Even so, the shame of it had all but defeated him.

“I can help,” the norseman offered again, shaking his head.

Jeff shook his head “no” just as the piano bench leg smashed against his skull again.

Jeff heaved awake, the sheets drenched in sweat.

Jensen Brothers Dealership

Murray, Utah

They’d only moved south one car dealership in the last three days because there’d been an uptick in criminal activity as they’d passed through the Salt Lake burg of Murray. They’d actually been hit twice during the daytime, and multiple times during the night, so Evan decided to hold up in the Jensen Brothers Nissan dealership until they’d worked through the “holiday rush” of criminals. They’d killed thirty-seven attackers in three days, and wounded god-knew-how-many more.

Evan watched the sunrise from the roof of the main building. It was cold as balls and the steam came off his coffee in great, rolling clouds.

Jeff radioed the day before with a FRAGO, Fragmentary Order, that modified their original mission. They wouldn’t strike out for Saint George, Utah, but would hold up instead on the southern border of Salt Lake County, providing reconnaissance on a supposed military force assembling along the Utah County/Salt Lake County border.

For Evan, it was a head-scratcher. Radios were dog shit for communicating nuances. Evan heard Jeff clearly: the Mormons were preparing to have a civil war within their church. He wanted Evan to get a “Mark One Eyeball” assessment on numbers, weapons and troop locations. In other words, Jeff wanted him to see what was going on with his own two eyes, and get a feel for the threat.

What baffled Evan was the whole church angle. It’d been three hundred years since a Christian church had gone to war against itself. Other than the wars between the Catholic Church and the protestants, Evan couldn’t think of a case of religious civil wars, if you excluded the Muslims. How could any religious man imagine that gunfighting was a good way to settle a contest of ideas?

Evan’s crew hadn’t seen anybody doing anything religious whatsoever in Salt Lake. But that shouldn’t surprise him—his team had stuck to State Street. State was a commercial corridor down the middle of Salt Lake and the residential areas were set back a quarter mile or so from the “main drag.” They hadn’t seen a single church, unless you counted the homeless rescue mission with the big, dead neon cross.

Maybe that’s why they hadn’t seen any Mormons yet—Evan figured the Mormons might be tucked into their neighborhoods, munching on their food storage and singing old church hymns. His mission had been to “decriminalize” the corridor up the center of the city and to conduct recon. He hadn’t ventured two blocks off State.

Like almost every other SOF veteran he knew, Evan didn’t sleep very well. He’d woken up at three o’clock in the morning to giant puffs of silent, falling snow, and he couldn’t get back to bed. Eventually, he got up and relieved Jake in the sniper’s nest on top of the two-story dealership. As dawn colored the sky over Utah from gray to cobalt blue, Evan worked his JetBoil, coaxing a new pile of precious coffee grounds into a cup of steaming bliss. He had his own, secret source of beans, tucked away in a warehouse just off State, and he’d resupplied on his way past.

Evan regretted not bringing his tactical lawn chair up the ladder with him. For some reason, Jake had been content to sit on the tar-and-gravel roofing; like hanging out on Torture Beach. The sharp bits of quartz stabbed Evan’s ass no matter were he positioned his butt bones. How the fuck did Jake spend all night up here? …Fucking Marines.

As Evan waited for his coffee to steep, he scanned the Area of Operation with his binoculars. The AO was dead quiet, all the zombies apparently had bedded down for daylight.

It was a rare, clear morning, which cast an irrational optimism despite the arctic cold. The sky was finally beautiful, after weeks of dreariness.

Since the collapse, hundreds of fires—wood, trash, plastic, rubber—had thickened and darkened the “inversion” over Salt Lake City. Every winter since Evan came to Utah to serve in the 19th Group Special