The Plan Read online

  RIKER’S APOCALYPSE: THE PLAN

  (Book 2)

  By

  Shawn Chesser

  KINDLE EDITION

  ***

  The Plan (Book 2)

  RIKER’S APOCALYPSE

  Copyright 2019

  Shawn Chesser

  Morbid Press LLC

  KINDLE Edition, License

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

  Shawn Chesser Facebook Author Page

  Shawn Chesser on Twitter

  ShawnChesser.Com

  ***

  Acknowledgements

  For Steve P. You are missed, friend. Maureen, Raven, and Caden ... I couldn’t have done this without your support. Thanks to our military, LE and first responders for all you do. To the people in the U.K. and elsewhere around the world who have been in touch, thanks for reading! Lieutenant Colonel Michael Offe, thanks for your service as well as your friendship. Larry Eckels, thank you for helping me with some of the military technical stuff. Any missing facts or errors are solely my fault. Beta readers, you rock, and you know who you are. Special shout out to the master of continuity: Giles Batchelor. You helped make this novel a better read. Thanks, George Romero, for introducing me to zombies. To my friends and fellows at S@N and Monday Steps On Steele, thanks as well. Lastly, thanks to Bill W. and Dr. Bob … you helped make this possible. I am going to sign up for another 24.

  Special thanks to John O’Brien, Mark Tufo, Joe McKinney, Craig DiLouie, Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Heath Stallcup, Saul Tanpepper, Eric A. Shelman, and David P. Forsyth. I truly appreciate your continued friendship and always invaluable advice. Thanks to Jason Swarr and Straight 8 Custom Photography for another awesome cover. I’m grateful to Marine veteran Buck Doyle of Follow Through Consulting for portraying Lee Riker on the cover. Once again, extra special thanks to Monique Happy for her work editing “The Plan.” Mo, as always, you kicked butt and took names in getting this MS polished up! Working with you over the years has been nothing but a pleasure. I truly appreciate having a confidante I can trust. If I have accidentally left anyone out ... I am truly sorry.

  ***

  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

  www.moniquehappy.com

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Sunday, October 16th, 2016 - Miami Beach, Florida

  Lee Riker, or Leland, the name given him by his late parents, shut off the Shelby Baja’s 6.2-liter V8 and clicked out of his seatbelt. Elbowing his door open, he was assaulted by eighty-five-degree air heavy with humidity and the sweet smell of freshly watered flowers growing around palm trees fronting the Best Buy store.

  Without a second glance at his new, shiny metallic-blue Ford, Riker set the pickup’s alarm and pocketed the keyless fob.

  As Riker strode across the half-full parking lot, he took in his surroundings. A steady flow of vehicles filed by on a nearby six-lane. The one-level building closest to the busy boulevard was occupied by a pizza place and liquor store. Only a handful of people roamed the sidewalks bordering the parking lot.

  The Best Buy dead ahead of him was basically a rectangle of mirrored glass framed by faux stacked-stone the color of coffee ruined with creamer. Perched high on the corner of the building was the easily identifiable blue and yellow sign.

  The set of mirrored double doors reflected Riker’s likeness back at him as he stepped to the low curb fronting the store. As the automatic doors parted, sunlight caught the titanium and carbon fiber prosthesis fitted to the distal nub of scar tissue roughly six inches below Riker’s left knee. Designed and fitted for him by a prosthetics specialty store outside the Beltway in D.C., the high-tech item shod in a black Salomon hiker was not the only thing he had earned driving high-level brass around in armored SUVs during his short deployment to Iraq. He also lived daily with a low-grade headache—the byproduct of the closed head injury brought on by the same IED that stole his leg and killed everyone aboard his Land Cruiser that awful day, many years ago.

  Stepping inside the Best Buy, Riker removed his wraparound Oakleys. Slipping his sunglasses into the breast pocket of his black and gray Tommy Bahama shirt, he performed a quick visual recon of the store’s interior.

  The air inside the high-ceilinged building was cool and still. Riker smelled the faint odor of electronic components discharging heat. Which didn’t surprise him. Much like every Best Buy store he’d ever set foot in, this place featured the ubiquitous rear wall plastered with enough flat-panel televisions to give the Jumbotrons ringing the Times Square pedestrian plaza a run for their money.

  Close in was a maze-like area dedicated to smart phones and every must-have accessory made for them.

  Swinging his gaze right, Riker saw an assemblage of waist-high desks on which dozens of laptops and tower computers sat. The former were hinged open, while the latter were tethered to flat-panel monitors much larger than anything he had ever seen connected to a computer. Trying hard to compete with their big brothers on the back wall, all of the computers’ displays in the section were lit up and beckoned with brightly hued landscapes or 4K video clips meant to show off their high-resolution capabilities.

  Riker shook his head. So much visual bait in one place.

  The store was busy with shoppers. Young men and women in cobalt blue shirts stalked them about the aisles. Other employees stood before glass counters full of shiny new electronic gadgets that, until recently, orbited well outside of Riker’s price range.

  Only explanation he could think of for the brisk pace of business the place was en
joying at eleven o’clock on a Sunday was that maybe people in this city weren’t the church-going type. Or, more likely, there was some kind of a can’t-miss sale happening.

  Whatever the case, the majority of shoppers in the store were all of a sudden making their way to the phalanx of televisions on the back wall, where a dozen or so were already congregated.

  Ignoring the low murmur of voices and the urge to go see what was so important on the televisions that it was dragging people from all around like bugs to the zapper, Riker took two long strides toward the smart phone department, entered the warren of display cases, and cleared his throat to get a nearby clerk’s attention.

  At six-foot-four, Riker towered over the average-sized twenty-something. In fact, he stood head and shoulders above most everyone.

  The kid was seated on a stool behind the counter. Seeing Riker, he straightened up and tilted his head back to make eye contact. As he did so, one hand shot up to push the wire frame glasses back to their perch on the bridge of his nose.

  “How can I help you?” asked the kid whose nametag read CHAD.

  “I’m looking to finally ditch my old phone and get something new,” Riker said.

  Flashing a nervous half-smile, Chad said, “You looking to surf the web mainly? You text a lot? You want to watch Netflix on it?”

  Riker tilted his head and shot the clerk a questioning look.

  “Oh … drilled it down too deep for you.” Chad swallowed hard. “Did you have an iPhone or Android before? Or are you a… Samsung guy?”

  He said Samsung as if the word tasted bad crossing his tongue.

  Riker simply stared at the kid.

  Rising from the stool, Chad asked, “What are you moving up from?”

  “Flip phone to something new,” Riker answered, no emotion in his tone.

  “Well, I’m an Apple guy,” declared Chad. “An early adopter, at that.” He smiled at Riker as if he was expecting the obviously tech-challenged customer to bow at the altar of Jobs.

  “Sure,” Riker said, sounding bored. “I’m easy like a Sunday morning.”

  Riker’s quip drew a funny look, which quickly dissipated as Chad leaned over and worked a key in the lock securing the sliding doors in back of the case.

  While Chad was moving things around in the case, Riker studied the crowd gathered along Television Row. He watched the press of bodies until his attention was dragged back to the transaction at hand by Chad placing an overly packaged white box bearing the Apple logo on the glass before him.

  “This is the new iPhone 7. It dropped in September. It’s your lucky day, because we just got more in. It’ll do everything but your dishes,” promised Chad. “And I’m sure someone’s already developing an app for that.”

  Geek humor flying way over his head, Riker asked, “How much?”

  “Six to nine hundred. All depends on how much memory you want.”

  “This one?” said Riker, stabbing his finger at the box. “How much is this one?”

  “It’s the one-twenty-eight gigabyte model. You’re looking at eight hundred and sixty-nine dollars.”

  “For a phone?”

  “It’s like a computer in your palm. Unlocks with your fingerprint.” He paused and watched as Riker studied the box. “It’s the Ferrari of smartphones,” he pressed, the hard sell in full effect. “Makes your old phone look like a Model T.”

  Sounding skeptical, Riker asked, “How’s the setup? Pretty easy?”

  “You hook it to your computer and follow the directions. Or you can do it over Wi-Fi. That takes a lot longer, though.”

  “Can I do it without hooking up to a computer?”

  Chad shook his head. “You’re going to want to sync your contacts and your music.”

  “Can’t I just type them in?”

  Chad made a face. “I’m only twenty-two and have a couple of hundred contacts. You’re like what…?”

  “Thirty-eight,” answered Riker.

  “So you’ve got waaaaay more contacts than I do. How many do you figure you have in your old device?”

  Riker shrugged. “Five or six.”

  “Hundred?! Damn, man. That’ll take you half a day to input manually.”

  Riker shook his head. “I have less than ten contacts. Is it doable without connecting to my computer?”

  Voice taking on a conspiratorial tone, Chad said, “I guess you could. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. You could jailbreak it.”

  Jailbreaking a phone piqued Riker’s interest. He wanted to ask Chad to elaborate, but the throbbing behind his eyes was getting worse with each passing minute. Instead, he produced his debit card.

  “I’ll take it,” Riker said. “And give me whatever cords I’ll be needing to charge it.”

  While Chad made the sale, he offered the requisite extended warranty, which Riker declined. As Chad bagged the white brick, Riker said, “What’s everyone watching back there?”

  “That’s that hijacked British Airways jet. It’s been sitting on the tarmac at Heathrow going on four days now. Someone said the British equivalent of our FBI is preparing to storm the plane.”

  Riker accepted the plastic bag with the phone in the bottom weighing it down. Staring toward the television section, he said, “Four days?”

  “Logan to Heathrow, flight seven-sixty-two. Something like three hundred people aboard. The second it came to a stop there the flight crew broke out a cockpit window and they all slithered out. It’s been all over the news.” He glanced up at Riker. “Where have you been?”

  “On the beach,” Riker answered.

  Pocketing the receipt, he set off walking toward the wall of televisions.

  Riker stopped a dozen feet away, a shelf of DVD players between him and the nearest person. He had no problem seeing over even the tallest fella in the crowd. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat on stilts could have been in front of Riker and he still would have had an unimpeded view. There were that many televisions. And most were tuned to BBC. The ones that weren’t broadcasting BBC were showing either CNN or MSNBC. And neither one of the American channels were covering the drama at Heathrow. Instead, they were reporting on the ongoing multi-state military training operation everyone was calling Romeo Victor.

  Regarding the sixty-five-inch Samsung at his one o’clock, Riker saw that things were indeed getting underway on the Heathrow tarmac. The jumbo jet looked to have been moved some distance from the airport terminals. It was surrounded by a mix of military and emergency vehicles. A tall fence stood between the vehicles, totally encircling the airplane so that only the red and white tail and top third of the white fuselage could be seen. The great distance between where the camera was set up and the tarmac rendered the image a bit grainy. Strangely, the blinds on many of the jet’s windows, thirty or forty, from the looks of it, were in the up position.

  Riker saw snatches of movement inside the plane’s gloomy interior.

  Leaning over the top shelf of DVDs, Riker got a middle-aged woman’s attention. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he whispered. “How many hijackers are there?”

  Shooting Riker a sour look, the woman shrugged and went back to watching.

  On the screen a dozen men in black uniforms rushed from behind a boxy armored vehicle to the perimeter fence. They moved with precision, barely a foot separating one from the other.

  A couple of seconds later the fence parted. Then, with no hesitation, the team, some toting body-length ballistic shields, all brandishing a stubby carbine or pistol, poured through the man-sized seam. Moving as one, the soldiers formed up beside the airstairs pre-positioned below the door just aft of the cockpit.

  As two men split from the team and charged up the stairs in single file, Riker heard a voice say, “ISIS is claiming responsibility.”

  Turning toward the voice, Riker found himself staring Chad full on in the face. Looking at the floor, Riker saw that the young man who’d sold him the phone was standing on a metal folding chair.

  “Why would terrorists want
to leave the United States?” Riker asked. “Their sole aim is to enter our country and spread fear by taking as many innocent lives as possible and make martyrs of themselves in the process. Pulse Nightclub ring a bell?”

  “Maybe they’re just homesick.”

  “Chad,” said Riker. “If you believe what you just said, I fear for the future of this country.”

  Chad said nothing. He stepped from the chair, folded it real slow, and skulked off.

  Riker turned back to the bank of televisions just as one of the soldiers who’d mounted the stairs was placing what could only be breaching charges around the perimeter of the door. Finished, the pair rejoined the others at the base of the airstairs.

  A tick later there was a puff of smoke and the door bowed inward. Even before the smoke cleared, bodies were surging through the breach.

  Exposed skin a grayish white, the handful of disheveled first-class passengers transited the short landing and poured down the stairs. Some fell at once, sliding face first down the steep run of stairs. Others, pushed from behind, cartwheeled out of control, missing everything but the unforgiving tarmac.

  One way or another, all of the bodies in that initial surge ended up in a tangled heap around the base of the airstairs.

  The second the first person off the plane stood up from the tarmac and sprinted headlong for the nearest soldier, knocking the shield aside and going for his exposed neck, Riker was certain it was a Bolt—one of the fast-moving zombies he’d first seen kill the elderly couple in Indiana.

  When the remaining passengers, especially those that shouldn’t have survived the long fall to hard concrete, picked themselves up and rushed the soldiers, there was no doubt in Riker’s mind that the sickness had jumped shores.

  With the cold finger of dread tickling his spine, Riker slung his sack over a shoulder and hustled toward the exit.

  Chapter 1

  Riker was two strides from the sidewalk fronting the Best Buy and donning his Oakleys when he saw a shadow fall across the oil-stained asphalt to his left. Next came the sensation of being watched. Just a feathery tingle at the base of his spine as senses honed during prehistoric times picked up, subconsciously, something out of balance in his environment.