Surviving the Collapse: A Tale Of Survival In A Powerless World- Book 1 Read online

  Surviving the Collapse: Book 1

  James Hunt

  Copyright 2017 All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means without prior written permission, except for brief excerpts in reviews or analysis.

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  Surviving the Collapse: The Beginning

  Download the FREE Prequel on Amazon- Click Here

  Captain Kate Holloway moved her family to New York to start over, and break the barriers that her work had created. But when an EMP brings New York to its knees, Kate must fight to survive amid the terror descending upon the city and rescue her family.

  Download the FREE Prequel on Amazon- Click Here

  Contents

  1. Yesterday

  2. Present Day

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  1

  Yesterday

  *** The free prequel is available in the TOC and front matter of this book***

  The daily banter beyond the walls of the eight by four prison cell had already begun. It was all part of the morning routine between Renniger’s insane guests and the correctional officers who “administered” their medicine.

  Screams of resistance preceded the heavy thuds of contact between a baton and a body. It was a symphony that would last for the next few hours. And while the violence of the medical staff traversed the halls of one of New York’s finest federal prisons, inmate 0946 in cell number 283 would be escorted past the crazies and into a small room where the next year of his life would be decided.

  Dennis Smith lay on his side on his cot, dressed in his bright orange jumpsuit, his shoes on his feet. He always slept in his shoes. It was a habit he picked up when he was a kid. It was the fastest way to escape a beating from his father, who would come home in the middle of the night, drunk and looking for someone to wale on. It was either him or his mother, and Dennis wasn’t taking a beating for that sour-faced bitch.

  And it was a habit that had turned useful even into his adult years. It was rare he was caught with his pants down. Ever since that first car he boosted when he was sixteen, Dennis had lived a life of violence. It was a path that eventually led him here, tucked away in the far northern wilderness in the middle of BFE, New York, kept under lock and key.

  Lock and key was just an expression, of course. Renniger was a state-of-the-art facility, run by sophisticated magnetized locks and security software. It was all digital and completely foolproof so long as the pistol-toting fat asses that ran this place were at the helm of the computers in the control room.

  When the screams beyond his cell ended and the crazies had been sedated for yet another day, Dennis opened his eyes. They were a rich, dark brown, so dark that they almost blended into the black of his pupils. He frowned, the thin eyebrows accentuating his expression as he wiped his hand down his face and through the light-brown beard.

  His joints groaned in pain as he stretched on the cot then grimaced. “Piece of shit.” He propped himself up with his arms and examined the tiny living quarters where he had spent the last eighteen years of his life. He circled that thought for a moment. Eighteen years.

  Time passed differently in prison. It was slower, painstakingly slower. The first few years were the worst. But eventually, time ceased to matter. Days bled into years, and years bled into decades, and the only thing that mattered was the survival of routine until one of two things happened: parole or death.

  Dennis, like every other resident in Renniger, was a lifer. There wasn’t a convict inside that didn’t have multiple murder or rape charges. Dennis was tagged on six homicides, two of them cops. And if there was one thing the judicial system didn’t like, it was cop killers. Prison guards weren’t fond of them either.

  For the first three years of Dennis’s life sentence, the guards beat him within an inch of his life. Then, once he was healed, the beating was repeated, and so began his life cycle on the inside. But out of all the beatings and rapes and the struggle to maintain his sanity within his concrete coffin, it was today that he hated most. It had come every year for the past thirteen years. It was the day that hope was flaunted in front of him and then snatched away. It was parole-hearing day.

  The springs of the cot groaned from Dennis’s weight as he rolled over, resting his head on the flat pillow that was more cardboard than cushion, and faced the wall. He pressed down on the mattress to reveal a space on the wall near his pillow.

  A name was etched into the concrete, one that had been retraced repeatedly over the past eighteen years. A flicker of rage brought the tip of his finger toward the carving. He traced the name slowly, mouthing it silently with his lips. Kate. Then, he punched it.

  Bone and concrete offered little more than a dull thud, but the pain radiated from his knuckles all the way to his shoulder. His hand throbbed, and Dennis rolled to his back, shutting his eyes. If it weren’t for that bitch, then he would have been out of here thirteen years ago. But she’d tricked him. She’d lied to him.

  One of the stipulations of his conviction stated that he wasn’t eligible for parole for five years after his sentencing, and it also prompted him to meet with a shrink once a month for “rehabilitation and observation.” It took him a year to figure out that what the shrink wrote down on that fucking yellow notepad actually mattered.

  That number-two-pencil-toting smug motherfucker had the ability to sway the parole board once he was eligible. So Dennis told the Poindexter what he wanted to hear. His father beat him, his mother wasn’t around, blah, blah, blah.

  But what he didn’t tell them about was the bug stuck in his head. And how every now and then it burrowed through his brain, eroding his reason and control, driving him into violence and madness. It fed him, made him come alive. He loved it.

  And after all of the sessions, all of the therapy, did he really change? No. It was all for show, and the long con was a struggle. He was more of a see it, want it, take it kind of person. But he pretended. Every day. For five years.

  And when those five long, painfully slow years finally ended, the shrinks were in his pocket. He even had a written statement from the warden, commending him for his lack of “violent incidents.” But there was one testimony that could put him over the edge. And it was from the very same woman whose name he had cursed since the day he was arrested.

  Dennis wrote Kate once a month for two years prior to that first parole hearing. And just when he thought that she wasn’t going to do anything, she finally replied. But what was more, the letter she wrote him back stated that she’d give him a favorable testimony.

  When the day of that first parole hearing arrived, Dennis couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. It would be a day he’d never forget. And like the name carved on the wall, he retraced it in his mind every single day.

  “Mr. Smith, have a seat.”

  The voice of the chairman of the parole board echoed just as loudly in his thoughts as the rattles from the chains around his ankles and wrists. Back then, the parole hearings were performed in a room with a window, which granted a limited picture of the world beyond the walls and barbed-wire fence. It was sunny and beautiful outside.

  “The board has reviewed your files as well as your written and audible testimony from
both the trial and the team of psychologists that have been working with you here at the facility.” The chairman lifted his eyes, his pupils magnified by thick lenses. “The board has already reached a decision regarding your case, but we wanted to offer you the opportunity to give a personal statement, in your own words, for the record.”

  Sweat broke under Dennis’s shirt and beaded on his forehead. The chains rattled as he shifted in his chair. He cleared his throat, doing his best to keep the bug under control. “I committed a crime as a young man that is inexcusable. And I know the lives I changed, including my own, will never regain what they’ve lost.” He dropped his hands, hunching slightly. “A man is dead because of me. He lost his life, and I lost my freedom.” He took a dry swallow. “But I have a son who doesn’t know me.” He lifted his gaze, just like he’d practiced, and produced a single tear that ran down his cheek. “He’ll be six next month. That’s a long time for a boy to go without seeing his father.” He wiped away the tear and cleared his throat, which had grown thick with phlegm. “I just want a second chance. I just want to prove to society and my family that I’ve changed. I think I deserve that chance. I hope you think so too.” He sat down, the bug squirming and begging to be released, but he hung tight. He was close. He just needed to wait a little longer.

  The committee leaned into each other’s ears and whispered. And while they deliberated, Dennis searched the room for Kate.

  At first he’d thought that he’d missed her when he entered. But now he was sure she wasn’t here. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably at her absence. Had she come earlier and already given her testimony? Two knocks interrupted the parole board’s deliberation, and Dennis turned to see Kate standing in the doorway. He smiled coyly. The dumb bitch decided to come.

  “Sorry.” Kate’s voice was breathless and soft. She appeared in Dennis’s peripheral vision, and she only brought her glance to his once. It was quick, dismissive.

  “Mrs. Hillman,” the chairman said. “We appreciate your attendance.”

  “I ran into some traffic on the way here,” Kate said, keeping her eyes focused on the parole members. “Am I too late?”

  “We’ve already received your written statement, but we haven’t vocalized our decision,” the chairman answered. “But seeing as you’re here, would you like to speak on behalf of Mr. Smith?”

  Kate opened her mouth, but after a long pause, she shook her head. “No.”

  Dennis’s stomach soured, and the bug started to wiggle loose.

  “Very well,” the chairman said. “Let the record state that the parole for inmate 0946, Mr. Dennis Smith, is denied.”

  It took a few seconds for the chairman’s words to register, and by the time they did, the correctional officers were already removing him from the room. “No, wait!” Dennis pivoted toward Kate, who kept her eyes on her shoes. “What did you tell them?” A sliver of malice snaked through the mask he’d practiced wearing. “What did you tell them, you bitch?”

  Rough hands removed him from the room, and Dennis’s bug broke free as he kicked and screamed and hollered all the way back to his cell. His elbow caught the cheek of one of the guards, and it cost him a week in isolation.

  To this day, Dennis didn’t know what Kate told the board. Those records were denied to him. But he was convinced that whatever she had told them was the reason for his continued incarceration. And so every year since that first parole meeting, for the past thirteen years, Kate arrived at his parole hearing, and he was denied release.

  And so today would be another year of the same.

  Dennis lay still on the cot and traced Kate’s name. He imagined killing her. Then he imagined fucking her. He did both often. And then his manhood hardened, and he reached down to relieve himself. But before he could finish, the click of boots echoed outside his door, and a buzzer sounded, releasing the mechanical locks inside the six-inch steel door.

  Dennis jumped from his bed, still erect, and placed his palms flat against the back of the wall, head down.

  The hinges of the steel door groaned as it swung inward, and three pairs of boots echoed methodically inside until the guards were so close that Dennis felt their hot breath tickle his neck.

  “Inmate 0946, turn around!” The orders were barked with a mechanical efficiency born from years of repetition.

  Slowly, Dennis complied, the lack of vigor noted by the snarl on the sergeant’s face, which quickly turned to a smirk at the sight of the erection. “Inmate 0946, did we catch you at a bad time?”

  Dennis kept his lips tight. He wasn’t in the mood for an ass kicking, not today, and especially not with a hard-on, though he suspected a beating would be the quickest way to get rid of it.

  The sergeant stepped forward, still smirking. “Want us to bring you a friend in here to take care of that? Maybe one of the skinny Latin boys the fags like so much?” The other two officers snickered, the leather of their boots groaning as they swayed their weight from side to side.

  “No, sir,” Dennis answered. “But you’re free to try.” He looked the sergeant in the eye, smiling. “I wouldn’t mind your wife in here, either.”

  The sergeant’s smirk faded, and the two correctional officers behind him stepped forward as if they were going to beat the shit out of him, but the sergeant held up his hand, and they stopped. Instead, the sergeant removed his baton and then slapped it down hard on Dennis’s erection.

  The contact sent a shock of pain through him that was so immense that he simply collapsed to the floor, gasping for air and spasming. It wasn’t until the tip of a guard’s steel-toed boots connected with his stomach that he started to grunt in pain.

  “Not his face!” the sergeant yelled. “I don’t want the parole board feeling sorry for him.”

  After the kicking was finished, the sergeant spit on Dennis and then gestured for his men. “Chain him up.”

  Steel was clamped tight around Dennis’s ankles and then his wrists, the chains stealing his mobility and slowly cutting the circulation to his hands and feet. It took less than a minute for them to throb and swell. Once the guards got him to his feet, his body screaming in pain, a hard jab to the back shoved him out of the cell.

  The restraints and the beating made the long walk through the prison halls awkward and painful. He was sure that his dick was broken, and a few ribs weren’t out of the question either. Before they entered the room with the parole board, the sergeant wiped the spit from Dennis’s cheek and checked to make sure there weren’t any physical signs of abuse. Once he was satisfied, Dennis was ushered in.

  The parole board ended their idle chatter and focused their attention to Dennis’s file. “All right.” The parole chairman was young but just as dismissive as his predecessors. Dennis had been through a lot of parole chairmen during his tenure. “Mr. Smith, do you have anything to state for the record before this committee reads its decision?”

  “No.” The answer came out no louder than a whisper, and Dennis found that it hurt to speak.

  “What was that, Mr. Smith?” the chairman asked.

  Dennis gritted his teeth with seething anger. “I said, go fuck yourself.”

  “Very well.” The chairman cleared his throat. “Mr. Smith, this committee does not grant you release in the form of parole. Your case for parole will be reexamined one year from now.” The gavel banged, and just like that, the correctional officers collected him and dragged him from the room. The entire proceeding took less than two minutes.

  Once he was back in the cell, the restraints were removed and Mr. Big Dick Sergeant smiled at Dennis, revealing a corn-yellow canine. “You’re never getting out of here, asshole. Never.”

  “Never is a long time, Shit Breath.”

  The sergeant turned and took a step but then swung around, leading with his fist, which landed with a dull thud against Dennis’s stomach.

  Air exploded from Dennis’s lungs as he dropped to his knees and tightly hugged his stomach. He leaned forward until his forehead touched the
cool of the concrete floor, then he listened to the laughter and the click of boots until the steel door shut and the locks were reengaged.

  Dennis rolled to his side, sipping gulps of air as the previous points of pain lit up his body like a Christmas tree. Once the pain subsided, he flicked a middle finger to the door then flashed another bird at the camera in the top left corner of the cell. The eye in the sky was everywhere. He couldn’t take a shit without someone watching.

  Slowly, Dennis pushed himself up, and as he sat on the edge of his cot, the halogen lights in his cell shut off, casting him in darkness.

  Dennis sat still for a moment, unsure of what happened. It was barely past morning, and lights out didn’t happen until eight o’clock. But this darkness was different from curfew. It was all-encompassing. All-shrouding.

  The mattress squeaked as Dennis stood, and he limped toward the front of his cell and peered through the tiny rectangular window of his door. The darkness in the hall matched the same one in his cell. Had the power gone out?

  A silhouette darted past the window, and Dennis jerked away in surprise. Suddenly, another shadow darted past, and another, and then a gunshot echoed down the hallway. He pressed his nose against the glass and realized they were inmates running in the halls, out of their cells.

  Dennis pressed his hands against the door, feeling his way toward the cracks and the absence of a handle. He wedged his fingernails between door and the frame, his muscles tense, and then pulled.

  He expected resistance, and the fantasy would end and he’d collapse back onto the cot and wait for the ache in his groin to disappear. But there was no resistance. The door opened. It was unlocked.