Stryker: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Read online

  STRYKER

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC TALE

  THE STRYKER SERIES

  By Bobby Andrews

  TEXT COPYRIGHT 2016

  BOBBY ANDREWS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events or places is coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the brave and honorable men and women who serve our country on all points of the globe. We call them by different names and know they belong to different services; but they all make the same sacrifices and know the pain and sorrow of separation from loved ones. Many know the horror of a field of battle, and the overwhelming sadness at the losses we suffer. The loss of a service member anywhere is a tragedy. They are not replaceable. They are not expendable, and they are not somebody else’s problem. They belong to all of us; we are a smaller and weaker people if we just go through the pale gestures that make us feel better about ourselves. “Thank you for your service” is just not enough. Get involved. Contribute to their charities. But most importantly, let them know your thanks is not a hollow gesture, but a heartfelt attempt to understand their cost of war and the price they continue to pay.

  --Bobby

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  DIE OFF PLUS TWO YEARS

  Caleb Stryker struggled to get his breathing under control as he peered through his rifle’s scope. The man pursuing him was as unrelenting as the pain associated with a needed root canal, and Stryker had spent the better part of six hours lumbering through the flat, featureless land to the west of the Cedar Breaks, just outside Austin, Texas. He was not built for running, nor was he accustomed to it. He was a sledgehammer of a man who stood six feet five inches tall and weighed 240 pounds. His body consisted of bones and layer after layer of lean, tough muscle.

  The sun beat down on his back as he continued to take deep breaths. His shirt was stained white with sweat residue that dried almost as it formed, and he repeatedly wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. This time of year, in this part of Texas, the heat was bad, worse, or unbearable. It was well into the last category. As the sun moved higher, the shadows around him grew shorter. He was lying in the dust under the concealment of a scrub cedar, hoping the man would appear soon so he could kill him, find more water, and get back to his Jeep. There was no question the man had to die. The relentlessness of his pursuit convinced Stryker he couldn’t leave him alive. “Who the hell is this guy?” he muttered to himself with a tinge of admiration in his voice.

  The chase had begun at a house he was searching for trade goods. He traveled light when he scavenged, wearing desert ops boots, tactical pants, and a t-shirt covered by a combat vest. His weapons were a Springfield XD .45 and his M-4A1 that he liberated from the Marine Corps when he left Camp Pendleton after the plague swept over the country like a tidal wave, killing almost everyone.

  He also carried spare mags, a personal water filter, a canteen, and a Pilot survival knife. His cell phone was tucked into the vest. It hadn’t rung in years, but every so often he would look at it and find it was still receiving signals.

  He stood up, hidden behind an outbuilding and quickly glanced at the clearing in which the house sat. After ducking back behind the cover of the building, he examined the mental photograph he took with the glance. The house was built of red brick and was the standard cookie-cutter, ranch-style home found throughout the state. The clearing where it stood was large and an ancient green Ford pickup sat beside the home. A window on the north side of the house was open, with a faded paisley drape puffing out with the light breeze. The gravel driveway stopped at the side of the house and the yard was filled with weeds. There were no flowers or plants of any description, save the grass and weeds.

  He zoomed to the center of his mental image and concluded there was nowhere on the front porch to hide a house key, and that the occupant is or was a single man. The weeds and lack of a garden or flowers, all pointed to that conclusion. He decided the house was likely empty. He also saw the front door was made of metal, and was likely probably more sturdy than the back door.

  He again examined the image and noted a dilapidated barn with peeling red paint, a tool shed to the north of barn, and a Quonset-style building that was open on the end facing him, with a John Deere tractor parked inside. Two paths snaked across the yard, shallow, narrow pathways where the grass and weeds were flat and faded in color. One led from the front of the house to the barn, and the other to the Quonset hut. He concluded that someone lived here until recently, as the paths through the yard would disappear in one season.

  Decision time. Life is full of options and they present themselves every minute of every waking moment. Stryker had long been processing them constantly without a second thought. It was a part of him that seemed to work by itself, almost like a parallel computer processor. Weighing and evaluating each choice with care was something he never stopped doing. One choice made, by definition, changed the options that presented themselves in the wake of the first decision. If you pick path A, you will not be confronted with the same options as you would if you selected path B. Some choices opened new opportunities and risks, while others might further limit your options going forward. The choice Stryker faced now was a binary one. Go in or leave? Opportunity or risk?

  He chose to go in, and approached the back of the house after clearing the outbuildings. The back door was made of wood and looked flimsy, so he approached it slowly as the boards of the porch whined under his weight. He took one long stride and kicked the door next to the handle, then entered the kitchen, gun up, after catching the rebounding door with his free hand. He stood completely still, listening for any noise that would indicate any living presence in the house. The house was silent.

  He moved into the room, tracking the M-4 in all directions, and cleared the rest of the house. He returned to the kitchen and examined the room more carefully. The countertops were ancient linoleum and the fridge and stove were both colored yellow. A dinette with two chairs sat at the end of the countertops and the floor was brown-painted concrete. The room smelled of garbage, rotting onions; the air was still and dry. He went through the cabinets and found them all empty. Whoever lived in the house had obviously packed up and left.

  Moving through the living room, he noted a thin layer of dust covered the hardwood floor. He examined it carefully for tracks and found none. He opened and searched all the furniture drawers. Glancing around, he noted the furniture was old and consisted of a sofa and two armchairs. There was no television set or phone in the room. He searched two bathrooms and three bedrooms, and discovered nothing more than a few old towels and blankets in one of the bedroom closets.

  Returning to the kitchen, he paused to considered the situation. He was scavenging further into the exclusion zone than ever before, and was surprised that nothing of value remained in the house. Rumors of radiation leaks at a nearby nuclear power plant discouraged most survivors from entering the area. Whoever left the home did not even leave a single matchbook or empty bottle. It was as though a giant vacuum cleaner sucked the contents of the home up, without any regard for the value or usefulness of anything. It was puzzling to Stryker.

  “Think,” he whispered to himself. He moved to a window and stared out at a bleak, brown landscape. There was virtually no vegetation to
be seen and the terrain was so flat you could spend a week watching your dog run away. He grunted, hating the view. There was no cover anywhere, so virtually no concealment. It was dangerous terrain and he was anxious to reach the Cedar Breaks, where the rolling hills were green and lush with plant life. He concluded there was no point in searching again, and started to move to the back door to exit the house and go back to his Jeep.

  As he crossed the dining room, he stopped and stared hard at the wall between the room he was in and the kitchen. He noticed that the partition was unusually wide and the dimensions were not the standard width of a two by four with sheet rock on it. He carefully examined the end of the wall and saw a small horizontal crack across the bottom end of the partition. He drew his knife from its sheath, knelt down, and wiggled the knife into the crack. After a few gentle attempts, the crack opened, and Stryker realized it was essentially a tiny door mounted on a hinge. He pulled a small yellow fabric bag from its hiding place and opened the pouch. He then poured the contents into one massive hand and stared down at eight gold coins. They were 1.2-ounce Mexican Centenerios, a coin minted in Mexico City years earlier. He had seen them before, but he couldn’t help staring.

  This was the largest score he made in two years of scavenging the zone. A wide grin split his normally taciturn expression, and he chuckled quietly. After attaching a carabiner to the drawstrings on the pouch, he clipped it to his vest and stood. The realization hit him that whoever cleaned out the house was not the occupant. The owner would never leave something of this value behind and take out the rest of the stuff. Whoever emptied the place wanted to make sure there was no reason for scavengers to linger, as there was nothing in it. Options? Risk or opportunity? He concluded whoever stashed the gold here was also scavenging and used the house to stash his loot while he continued to work, which implied he would be coming back. It was time to go.

  He exited the house through the back door and started walking back to his vehicle. The yellow bag bounced off his chest as he moved, and his eyes clicked back and forth like a metronome. He had moved thirty meters from the house when a shot rang out and the dust three feet in front of him puffed a cloud.

  Stryker could see the shooter in the distance. He was around 700 meters away and the roar of the rifle sounded like that of a .308. He was resting the bipod of the weapon on a heap of rocks. Stryker knew the maximum effective range of that rifle was around 800 meters. The record Marine Corps confirmed sniper kill with that weapon was at a range of 1250 meters.

  The man had come close with his shot. Stryker could see him doing something with the weapon and concluded the man was adjusting the elevation setting. He turned and ran in the opposite direction of travel and at an oblique angle to his previous direction. He didn’t want the man making the same shot with a dialed-in scope. As he ran, he heard a second shot, and the dust kicked up to his right and slightly ahead of him. Stryker increased his speed to a full run. His only hope was to get to the Breaks, where he could find concealment and take the guy out. His M-4’s maximum effective range was 400 meters, but that was with match grade ammo and perfect conditions.

  “Must be his gold,” Stryker muttered as he ran. After ten minutes or so, he slowed to a walk and doubled over, sucking huge amounts of oxygen into tortured lungs. He stood and scanned the horizon. The man was following at around a 1,000 meters and was settled into a loping gait that was more measured than Stryker’s desperate sprint. He continued to breathe in air and felt his wind returning after a minute. He glanced up and saw his pursuer was maintaining his speed with a graceful stride.

  “Christ, I gotta get into this with some former track star?” He shook his head and started running again, this time at a pace that seemed to match the man pursuing him. He knew the man was a good shot, and maybe even a sniper in a former life. He also knew that snipers needed three things to shoot accurately: excellent vision (he guessed the guy had that), a low heart rate, and controlled breathing. Stryker intended to keep the man running as long as his legs held up. He didn’t want him to have a low heart rate, and he wanted him breathing hard until they reached the Breaks and Stryker could fight within the range of his weapon.

  If there was one thing Stryker hated it was a sniper. Most Marines and soldiers felt the same way. He had seen the hardest men he knew crack under the pressure of knowing a sniper was operating in an AO they patrolled. It was death from nowhere. One second you were there, and the next you’re gone. You might even be lucky enough to hear the shot before you die. It was the randomness of it that made people so fearful. There was no skill involved with defeating one. A good Marine or soldier was no less likely to die a sudden death than the worst one in a given unit. You couldn’t be more careful-that would just make your movements slower and present an even better shot for the sniper. If you tried to move more quickly, you were more exposed. There was just no way to avoid casualties.

  The only way to find the shooter was to see where the shot came from, and that meant that somebody was likely to die. The worst snipers were the ones who shot to wound. The calibers were large with most snipers’ weapons, and the wounded would probably eventually die; but you can’t stand by and watch your comrades bleed out, either. Eventually someone is going to try to recover the wounded, and they get shot next. Rinse and repeat until either men stop trying to recover their wounded, or everyone is on the ground, wounded and dying.

  In the ideal world, somebody spots the sniper early on and calls in an artillery strike, or lobs a motor round at the shooter. Or you maneuver on him with suppressing fire, and force the shooter on the defensive. None of that was going to happen today.

  Stryker hated snipers.

  The game of cat and mouse continued throughout the afternoon, with Stryker halting to get his wind and allowing the pursuer to get within 800 meters before again running to build a buffer of 200 meters more. Every time he looked over his shoulder, the man continued to jog at the same pace, relentless and apparently untiring. At one point, the man closed to 700 meters, and another round whizzed by Stryker’s ear as he again picked up the pace. Stryker was losing this war of attrition and if he didn’t make it to the Breaks, he was going to die in the next hour or two.

  He considered leaving the bag of gold on the ground where the man would find it and give up the chase. But, Stryker now understood that the man’s motivation was personal, and that it had nothing to do with the gold that bounced against his chest. Nobody would expend this kind of energy and time over a few pieces of gold. One of them was going to die, and he didn’t intend to be the loser in the contest.

  The next time he stopped to get his wind, he saw the man had closed the gap between them to around 700 meters again, and was laying prone, setting up his next shot. He immediately began running again, moving away at an angle from the straight line he had followed toward the Breaks, sidestepping occasionally to throw off the aim of the shooter. At this distance, the bullet would be in the air for over two seconds, and a lot can happen in that period of time in ballistic terms.

  Both gravity and drag resistance affect the projectile from the moment it leaves the barrel, and serves to force the bullet to slow and drop. Snipers’ ballistic tables will predict how much elevation correction must be applied to the sight line for shots at various known distances. A projectile has both forward and vertical motion. Forward motion is slowed due to air resistance, and the vertical motion is dependent on a combination of the elevation angle and gravity. Wind was also factor, and it was gusty that day. A target can move or duck. In short, the man was trying to make incredibly difficult shots from a distance that made each shot more a matter of luck than skill. Another slug whizzed by his right side, and he again accelerated to a sprint to gain back the distance he had until a few minutes ago.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” he mumbled to himself as he settled into a long stride and slower pace. Glancing over his shoulder a few minutes later, he saw that he had opened the gap to around 1,000 meters. The man continued to follow
at the now-familiar lope.

  Stryker noted that he was no longer sweating – not a good sign. He was out of water, and would soon begin to falter and eventually pass out. He looked ahead and noted the Breaks were around a mile off. The sound of his boots impacting the concrete-like compacted earth echoed in his ears. He was coming up to a series of rolling hills filled with trees and shrubs and full of concealment options. He slowed down, allowing the pursuer to close again to 800 meters, before he entered the first set of hills and jogged up the slope. Jogging down the backside, he slowed to a walk and gradually climbed the second hill, where he waited for the man to reach the top of the first hill. Stryker ran down the third hill and up the next few until he widened the gap by 1,200 meters.

  Moving off the trail, he hand-railed his way through the trees and back to the depression between the last two hills by moving parallel to the path he followed up, traveling through the concealment of the trees that lined the trail. He plopped down beneath a scrub cedar. When he finally got his breathing under control, he raised his M-4 and waited in a prone position with his weapon pointed at the trail he just traversed.

  The man topped the third hill and stopped to glass the trail ahead. He was 500 meters out; though tempted, Stryker could not take the shot in his condition. His attacker moved forward, obviously cautious and knowledgeable about how the tactical situation had changed. Stryker knew the man understood he was now the hunted and not the hunter, and his slow approach told Stryker he would be spotted and taken out in a matter of minutes if he didn’t land the first blow.

  He remembered his grandfather, a World War II vet that was hard as a woodpecker’s beak and gentle as a lamb. He once told Stryker, who had just come home with a black eye from the first of many schoolyard fights, that there were only two rules to fighting. The first was to try to stay out of them. The second was get in the first blow and keep going until your opponent is helpless; don’t give him the chance to mount an offence against you. Stryker waited patiently for the man to reach the top of the next hill. That would put him at 120 meters, and he was confident he could make that shot. He switched the selector to burst and aimed at the spot where he expected the guy to appear at the crest of the hill.