End World: The Captain's Tale Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Author’s Notes:

  END WORLD

  The Captain’s Tale

  (End World Book Three)

  Kindle Edition

  By David Peters

  Copyright © 2012 by David Peters

  The End World Series

  End World One: Dawn of the Corrupted

  End World Two: Ultimate Corruption

  End World Three: The Captain’s Tale

  End World Four: Corruption Undone

  Other Books by David Peters:

  A Darkness Book One

  Solvi

  Author’s Comment

  To those readers that are following the End World series, first and foremost, thank you for allowing me the time to take you on the journey that is Dylan and Niccole’s life. When I first put words down on virtual paper, I never imagined my story would reach so many and so far. Thank you to all my readers!

  In order to forgo some possible confusion, this, the third story in the End World series, actually starts before the first chapter in End World: Dawn of the Corrupted (the first book). This is the story of Chris “Cap-Cap” Caperson and how he came to be where and who he was. It is from a different point of view than that of a civilian fighting to escape. This book occurs in the same general time period as the first and parts of the second book, and in some cases touches both those stories (as readers may recall).

  This book is in direct response to the multitude of question I had around what exactly the military response was and questions around the life and times of ‘Whiskey’ Jen and Cap-Cap.

  So without further ado (enter ominous opening music theme, lights go down as the show, I mean book, begins)...

  Prologue

  The Captain knelt quietly with his head held low and his eyes closed. He kept his head turned slightly to one side. He had one hand pressed against the wall to his right while the other kept a death grip on his carbine. He slowed his breathing as he listened intently to the sounds of the empty hospital around him. He could hear water down the hall as it slowly dripped from some unknown source onto a hidden puddle on the floor. The notes played by the falling water told him there was more than one leak in the building. One of the ceiling lights sounded as though it was shorted out as it buzzed and popped a short distance away, an occasional spark leaping from the ceiling with an electrical pop and puff of smoke. Nothing he heard made him think anything alive was nearby so he peered cautiously around the corner into the nurses’ station. The long hallway was littered with bedding and loose piles of clothing. Several carts had been overturned and spilled their contents of everything from tongue depressors to aspirin. Two of the room beds had been turned on their side blocking the far end of the hallway and forming a small barrier. The acrid smell of antiseptic and shorted out electrical equipment filled the air. Most of the overhead lighting was broken out but a few of the neon light ballasts were dangling from the ceiling creating slow moving shadows as they twisted around on their electrical wires.

  At the far end of the hall, a dark shadow was bent low over the shredded remains of an orderly. It silently tore into the body as if it were an animal on a fresh kill. The thing would tear flesh with its hands then tear more off with bare teeth like some starving prairie carnivore. Scraps of ragged camouflage were still hanging off the nightmarish thing, shreds of earth and desert toned cloth clotted with the blood and gore of his victims.

  Cap-Cap quietly ducked back around the corner and looked at the other two. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes then motioned around the corner and held up a single finger signaling to the others of the danger without making any noise.

  Mikey nodded and eased the safety off his compact submachine gun with a nearly silent click. The shadow at the end of the hall turned at the man-made sound and hissed lightly. The round made a slight puff sound as it exited the end of the fat, silenced barrel and detonated the head of the still hissing beast. The corpse of the thing fell back against the wall and slid silently to the floor amid the piles of garbage and gore. The empty casing bounced off the wall and down the hall with the sound of hollow brass.

  They paused for several moments to see if the sounds attracted any attention, looking around for any remaining movement they found none or any new noises further in the darkness.

  Cap-Cap turned back and whispered to Jen, “Looks clear. Okay, we got six floors worth of stairs to pound down. Whiskey, how bad is that ankle? Can you do it or do we need to figure out some other way out of this house of horrors?” His soft voice carried an edge of tenderness that he wouldn’t usually show to a soldier and he blushed briefly when he realized it.

  “It’s throbbing like hell but I’ll make it work if it gets us out of this hellhole.”

  Cap-Cap nodded to her and motioned for Mikey to take the lead toward the exit.

  The Airborne soldier flashed a silent okay hand sign showing that he understood and he began moving down the hall in quiet, meaningful steps. Every footstep was carefully placed in order to miss the garbage and equipment scattered haphazardly around the long corridor. Even stepping on a random pill or bit of broken glass would crunch loudly and carry down the quiet hall. With every step that made noise they would pause long enough to make sure it didn’t sound as if someone were walking down the hall, and hopefully it would be lost in the background noises of the destroyed hospital.

  Mikey moved down the center of the large hallway and constantly scanned to his left then to his right as he set out a path for the other two to follow. He kept the silenced assault rifle snug against his shoulder, the barrel followed his eyes as he quickly scanned every room they passed. A majority of the doors were closed but a few were held open by pieces of furniture and the larger piles of garbage strewn around. In random places, a bloodied and torn body of someone that didn’t make it would be mixed in with the piles. The bodies were savaged, along with the bloody handprints on the walls told a story that no one on the team was really interested in learning at the moment. Most were turning very dark shades of black or a deep blue-gray.

  Mikey peeked one eye around the last corner then pulled his head back quickly while making a motion for them to stop. Two of the dark shapes were walking on all fours and moving in their direction down the hall. With nothing but the emergency lighting, he couldn’t make out any detail in the shadows. They walked like giant cats, every footstep was silent as snow. One of them would stop every few steps to peer through an open door they passed then hiss quietly at each other before moving on. At the far end of the hall one of the fluorescent lights had broken free and slowly swung back and forth in a wide arc. Midway down the hall a sign hung from the ceiling indicating the stairwell. The shadows reached a large intersection of hallways and turned down the hall with a hanging sign and large arrow showing the way to the cafeteria. They hissed several times back and forth before finally disappearing out of view.

  Mikey nodded to the other two that the hallway was clear and as one, they moved silently down the hall toward the door. Across the hall from the entrance to the stairwell was the hallway the things had moved down. Neither of them was visible in the gloomy darkness that enveloped the cafeteria but the sound of one of their heavy talons in the trash echoed down the long hallway.

  He tried pushing on the release handle but found it locked tight. Even putting all his weight against it Caperson found he couldn’t move the metal fire door more than an inch before i
t would stop, “Damn thing is chained on the other side, I think something is jammed against it too,” he whispered to Mikey. Looking both ways down the hall he saw the only escape route open to them, the elevator lobby was at the end of the hall, “I think our only choice at this point is to pack our collective asses into a small metal box, unless you want to try a window.”

  “Exterior windows don’t open enough and I can’t imagine how loud breaking the glass will be. Not to mention the fact that none of us have magically sprouted wings,” Mikey jokingly looked at his shoulders as if to verify that fact.

  “Elevator it is then,” he said with a smile then turned and moved down the hall.

  With Mikey in the lead, Jen was quietly limping along in the middle, and Cap-Cap guarding the rear they made their way down the long hallway to the main elevator lobby. Both men kept their weapons pointed toward the cafeteria while Jen did her best to keep her limping footsteps quiet in the broken glass and trash that covered the floor.

  Mikey pushed the down button and they waited for the elevator to arrive on their floor. With a slight vibration and a hum from the machinery behind the closed door, the elevator started moving toward their floor. The numbers continued to climb as the elevator made the six floor journey. The three looked at each other and almost laughed out loud as they waited for their escape car to arrive. When the elevator arrived on their floor there was a quiet ‘ding, ding’ and a white arrow illuminated marking the arrival of the car.

  The three tensed but could hear nothing from the darkened cafeteria as the well-oiled doors silently slid open. They squeezed into the elevator. The amount of gear they had made it a fairly tight squeeze. Jen leaned against the back wall while the other two kept their weapons aimed out the doorway. Caperson pushed the button labeled ‘Lobby’.

  “Going down,” the automated computer voice said at what sounded like a deafening volume. In an instant the world around them slowed to a standstill. Mikey flexed his hand on the pistol grip of the silenced submachine gun.

  From the cafeteria there came a large crash as the two shadows turned to run toward the sound that could only have come from a human.

  “Shit!” Cap-Cap mashed the lobby button several times in the vein effort to have the elevator understand their urgency and shut the doors faster.

  Mikey knelt down and aimed toward the dark opening to the cafeteria. The first beast took the corner entirely too fast and slid across the hall into the wall with the sound of claws tearing up the tiles. As it scrambled on the slick floor to gain traction, Mikey began firing three round bursts into the center of its body. The second beast took the corner faster and used the wall to keep his speed up. He jumped over his wounded comrade and slammed his full body into the door as it closed.

  Cap-Cap leaned against the wall, “Holy crap that was close.”

  Jen laughed, “Yeah, a little too close I think.”

  The elevator had just lit up floor two when the remaining emergency power failed in the building and they lurched to a stop. Any light running now was simply on battery backup and provided little in the way of visibility. The elevator was pure blackness.

  As Cap-Cap’s eyes adjusted, he could just make out the glowing hands of his old watch and the muted glow in the dark bands on Mikey’s uniform. He looked around the elevator for any other light source but found nothing but utter and complete blackness.

  “What do we do now, sir?” Mikey said in frustration, “I can’t see squat in here and there is at least one of those damn things upstairs and extremely pissed with us.”

  With a familiar sound Caperson sparked the flame on his lighter, “That’s just slightly better. Whiskey, hold this while I see if I can boost Mikey up. Maybe he can pop open a ceiling panel.”

  As Mikey placed his boot into Cap-Cap’s interlaced hands, there was a clawing sound coming from somewhere up the elevator shaft above them.

  In the darkness, Cap-Cap held his finger to his lips, “Shhh! Quiet, what was that noise?” He pointed to his ears and then up toward the ceiling. Then with a sound like wrenching steel, the doors far above them were pushed open against their will. The elevator shaft was as silent as a tomb when the Hunter slammed into the top of the car. Above Jen’s head the ceiling deformed where the heavy creature had landed, she grasped at her pistol and dropped the lighter, plunging them back into darkness. Cap-Cap emptied his pistol into the ceiling creating a strobe of flashing light with every shot. With ringing ears and the smell of cordite floating on the air, they waited.

  Thick blood dripped in slow ticks through several of the bullet holes as they sat low in the car.

  Jen flicked the lighter back into life.

  “I think I got—” Cap-Cap jumped as the arm crashed through the ceiling struggling to claw at the voice below.

  Mikey emptied an entire magazine from his silenced weapon into the ceiling until the black arm finally stopped clawing for Caperson. He touched the hanging hand with the end of his rifle. The still hot barrel sizzled slightly as it touched the black skin but it remained limp, “It’s dead for real this time, I think.”

  The three kept their sidearms aimed at the ceiling until they felt sure it was finally dead.

  “I don’t think up is an option any longer,” the Captain said as he slid his K-Bar between the doors and twisted. With a slight screech of metal the doors opened enough for them to get their fingers in and force the sealed doors apart, “Let’s get the hell out of this box.”

  Several battery powered lights hung at the ends of the hallway over exits but they provided little in the way of illumination. As they moved into the lobby, it became clear what had happened while they had been on the upper floors. Every window in the front entrance had been shattered and several large holes were still slightly smoldering behind the receptionist’s desk, “Okay folks, looks like the fighting here was fresh, let’s take it low and slow, try not to look like the bad guys and let’s find our friendlies.”

  Chapter 1

  Four weeks earlier...

  Cap-Cap watched the large desert tan tank negotiate the final turn onto a long gravel road. The dust trailing behind the sixty-ton beast hid the armored elements following behind as they climbed up the steep hill. His lookout post was nearly three kilometers away from the battlefield and this was the final push against his team. Now that the enemy had cleared the final turn, there was nothing but vast open hill between his tree line and the enemy desperate to destroy him.

  He lowered the binoculars and turned to walk into the back of his Bradley, “Red team is getting close, anything on the net, Jimmy?”

  A face covered with camouflage paint turned slightly to respond, “All quiet, sir. Blue element reported ambush ready but has been radio silent for the last forty minutes. They hunkered down and are one hell of a patient team. I’ve picked up some chatter from the Red team but they are pretty quiet for the most part. I think it’s clear they have no idea where we are.”

  With the familiar ‘clink’ of his silver Zippo, Cap-Cap lit one of his trademark cigars and looked up at the heavy camouflage netting covering their small group of vehicles. They would be invisible until a unit got within a few hundred meters of their position but he didn’t anticipate a single enemy unit climbing their out-of-the-way hill. He knew his enemy well.

  Down in the valley below them he could see the dust rising from the units trailing a short distance behind the initial scout platoon. He had confidence in his men and the plan they put together but plans only work until first contact was made. After the first shot was fired in combat, all plans became dynamic and ever changing, it was entirely training and his men had been over this exact scenario half a dozen times in the last month.

  Jimmy yelled excitedly from the command console, “We have initial contact, sir! Lead element reports contact with the initial scout column! They are engaging the armor at range with direct fire!”

  From the far side of the valley he could hear the cracks of the training rounds from the light tanks h
iding in the trees at the base of the hill. Billowing clouds of white smoke indicated the simulated missiles being fired from the hidden Bradleys. The three lead, heavy-armor scouts all had blinking yellow lights on their turrets marking them as having been killed and out of action. Casualties would be calculated later but they were of no concern during the heat of battle. A heavy thumping sound came from the far valley as two dark-green attack helicopters came in low to the riverbed, desperate to answer the cries for air cover that the assaulting team was no doubt filling their radio channel.

  Cap-Cap pointed his fingers at the helicopters and gestured as if he were pulling a trigger.

  Nearly three kilometers away, two puffs of white smoke signaled the firing of Stinger antiaircraft missiles. Fountains of flairs sprouted from below the helicopters as they attempted to confuse the virtual seekers on the missiles. Moving through the valley as low as they were, the missiles would have no problem maintaining a lock on the hot exhaust from the twin turbines. The advanced missiles couldn’t possibly miss.

  He could hear Jimmy talking with several of the platoon commanders before talking loudly out to Caperson, “Both down, sir, good call on the double-A asset location, they never even knew what hit them. Those chopper jocks are going to have their undies in a bunch for weeks.” He chuckled to himself, “I got a buddy in logistics, he’ll send ‘em a fake bill for the loss.” He continued to update the digital map in front of him with a full-faced grin, “Man I love this job some days.”

  The helicopters continued down the valley and out of the field of action having been informed that they were both virtual smoking piles of wreckage strewn across a mile of mountain side. Cap-Cap could imagine the frustration the assaulting team was feeling now and it would play directly into how the rest of his plan would work out.

  The column of the enemy moved onto the logging road and moved blindly into the valley of the dead. Again, Cap-Cap made the exaggerated shooting motion with his hand, but this time he was pointing at the column of vehicles in the valley. The MILES gear, which stands for Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System, on the lead tank flashed a yellow light and the tank came to a rolling stop as it was killed by a simulated land mine. At almost the same instant the Bradley armored personnel carrier in the rear started flashing yellow as it too took a lethal simulated hit. One by one the remaining eight vehicles in the platoon were reduced to yellow flashing lights as the smoke from the shooting filled both the valley and the crest of the hill on their right flank.