Re-emergence: Book One of the Surviving the Blaze series: Surviving the Blaze, #1

By Copper Smith

When a mysterious fire scorches the earth and brings the population close to zero, Michael Nash finds himself alone in a world exploding with chaos, violence and lawlessness. His wife is gone, perhaps dead. His friends, family and neighbors have also disappeared, victims of random violence and stray animals that have mutated into savage beasts. 

 

And the biggest threat of all: The Patrollers. 

 

Patrollers are re-animated humans, handcrafted into unstoppable killing machines. Protected by steel armor and guided by the instructions of their makers, they're on a mission to wipe out the remaining traces of humanity. The only thing in their way is trained army sniper Michael Nash. 

 

But will his sharpshooting skills be enough to save his wife and the rest of humanity? 

 

Can Nash's rogue gang of ex-cons and vagrants bring down an army of killer robots? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Smith
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201966027

Book preview

Re-emergence

A Post-Apocalyptic/ Dystopian Adventure

Book One of the Surviving the Blaze Series

Copper Smith

Copyright 2021 By Copper Smith All Rights Reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Day 4 of the Blaze

Chapter 1

Day 189 of the Blaze

Chapter 2

Day 190 of the Blaze

Chapter 3

Day 191 of the Blaze

Chapter 4

Day 191 of the Blaze (Evening)

Chapter 5

Day 192 of the Blaze

Chapter 6

Eight Days before the Blaze

Chapter 7

Day 193 of the Blaze

Chapter 8

Day 194 of the Blaze

Chapter 9

Day 195 of the Blaze

Chapter 10

Day 195 of the Blaze (Evening)

Chapter 11

Day 196 of the Blaze

Chapter 12

Day 196 of the Blaze (Evening)

Chapter 13

Day 199 of the Blaze

Chapter 14

Day 199 of the Blaze (Evening)

Chapter 15

Countdown Day 13

Chapter 16

Countdown Day 13 (Evening)

Chapter 17

Countdown Day 11

Chapter 18

Countdown Day 11 (Later)

Chapter 19

Countdown Day 11 (After Sunset)

Chapter 20

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Re-engagement

Prologue

Day 4 of the Blaze

Carmen slipped out of bed carefully and quietly, knowing how light a sleeper her husband was. Eyes still shut, he mumbled a string of nonsense syllables, freezing her in place. He repeated the gibberish, then hugged his pillow, still asleep — for now. 

They’d argued the night before. The world was erupting into chaos, he reasoned. The streets were crawling with danger. Remaining in the bunker was the safest move — even if it meant leaving loved ones behind. 

Carmen, your parents are as safe as they can possibly be at the airport! Let them stay there until things calm down a little!

But for Carmen, that wouldn’t do. So she pretended to accept his reasoning, then lay down next to him in bed, waiting for a quiet moment to take off. 

She kept eyeing him as she slipped into a pair of sweatpants and an old Dallas Cowboys football jersey Nash had given her for her birthday. Even in the middle of the unfolding nightmare, she couldn’t resist laughing at how unromantic he could be. 

Carmen turned on a small radio, her hand shaking so uncontrollably, she could barely tuck the earpiece into place. 

A news reporter spoke in somber, urgent tones while sirens blared in the background. 

... some have estimated that thousands of deaths have taken place globally in the last forty-eight hours alone since the appearance of the mysterious fire. Chaos has ensued as many citizens have taken to the streets, looting and engaging in all manner of violent behavior. Police in many cities have gone into hiding, citing safety concerns...

A newscaster broke in with a question. Jennifer, do meteorologists have any idea what caused this gigantic fire in the first place?

Good question, Rex. So far, The Blaze, as they’re now calling it, could have been created by any number of things. As of right now, those investigating haven’t ruled out foul play. It is after all, very rare that a fire of that enormity erupts spontaneously without any obvious natural cause.

Could you elaborate on that?

Well, the list of possible bad actors is endless. A terrorist group, a nation’s army launching an attack. Investigators simply do not know.

Scooping up her cell phone from the living room couch, Carmen took a glance at the screen, then released a gasp. Five messages from Mama in the middle of the night. This couldn’t be a good sign. She shut the living room door and dialed. 

Hello, dear, her mother answered on the first ring. She sounded winded, drained, sad. 

Mama, Carmen said. I was just on my way to come and get you. Are you and Papi still at the airport?

No, my child. Your father... had a problem.

What is it?

Her mother’s voice grew dim and weak. Did you not see the news?

Mama, there is all kinds of horrible things on the news, which do you mean? The explosions downtown? The plane crash —

I mean the bridge collapse... 

Mama! Mama, what are you saying?

Her mother cleared her throat, then took deep breaths. Carmen, your father is dead.

Carmen dropped to the couch cushions and buried her face to muffle her sobs. No! No, Mama! Please tell me this has not happened!

I’m so sorry, dear.

No! Not Papi, no! Carmen curled into a ball, limbs shaking. No, no, no!

We tried to leave the airport, a bunch of us did! It was too many people! Too much chaos!

Carmen sprang to her feet, slapping a hand against the couch. Mama, I am coming to get you!

No, sweetheart! You cannot! There is a reason we were still here at the airport! The police have said the streets are not safe!

I don’t care. I cannot let you stay there among those dangerous crowds when my husband and I are here safe in a bunker.

Carmen, no! Your father constructed that bunker with you in mind. We have lost one child already. It would break my heart to lose another. Please!

Mother, I am coming and that is the final word! Carmen clicked the phone dead and strapped on her gas mask. Stepping from the living room without a sound, she took a final glance at her sleeping husband before scaling the bunker staircase, then opening the hydraulic blast door. She texted her mother. I will see you soon.

Stepping out of the bunker and into the bedlam of the real world brought Carmen’s body into an instant tremble. With shaking hands, she shut the hydraulic blast door, then fastened it, eyes still locked on the bright purple blaze in the distance as it rippled against the sky, flames shooting from buildings, homes, hilltops.

A haze floated just above the street as howls, gunshots and horrified screams echoed into the night. Carmen swallowed hard, fighting off the urge to return inside as she moved to the garage, car keys rattling in her hand like a tambourine. 

Once in the jeep and out of the garage, she took a deep breath, bracing for a wasteland, a place she would no longer recognize. 

The world didn’t disappoint. 

The further Carmen drove toward the airport, the louder and angrier everything became. The random shrieks surrounded her now, as did the explosions, the collisions and the unending roar of night creatures unleashed into a now untamed world.  

The neighborhood just outside the ranch was mostly laid to waste, not much left but rubble and piles of lifeless bodies littering the streets — mostly animals, but a few human limbs sat there too. As the carnage and debris blurred past, Carmen did her best to keep her eyes away from the streets. Jaw tight and eyes wide, she kept driving. Her mother needed her now. And she needed to be brave.

The angry stabs of honked horns reached her miles before she’d gotten to the off-ramp. Cars were backed up for blocks, people scrambling between vehicles, their faces erupting with panic. She arched her neck to find a freeway loaded with too many drivers and too many crazed pedestrians. A crash of broken glass got her attention, sent her head snapping to the right. A fist fight had unfolded. Three men in business suits kicked, clawed and bit each other.

It was time to give up on the off-ramp, find another way, a side street. She pulled away and took a sharp left, knowing it wouldn’t be easy to get there in time. But her options were narrowing. An alternate route was the only choice. 

After a block, Carmen knew this was a mistake. 

A streetlight dangled from its pole, flickering out slowly in an otherwise pitch black parkway. Feral cats screeched as rattling cans and the low murmur of frightened voices rang out. This was not a place to move through slowly. Carmen picked up speed, knowing she’d be at risk of a collision, reaching fifty miles per hour, then sixty, her sweaty palms nearly slipping from the wheel, her eyes alertly wide, her breath choppy.

A shopping cart of burning pillows rolled into the intersection, too late to dodge, so she smashed through, sparking the pillows against the windshield as the cart bounced away with a clatter that echoed in Carmen’s ears way too long. 

A doberman lunged for the hood, growling and clawing out a warning, urging her into another right, but this brought her before a burning motorcycle. She steered past it, heart pounding like a bass drum.

Struggling to keep everything together, Carmen just kept driving east, no idea where she was. All she knew is she had to get to the airport. She couldn’t let Mama down, couldn’t let her stay there with the world spiraling into madness like this. 

In an effort to still her nerves, she turned on the radio, seeking music but finding nothing but news reports of a world on fire. 

... are now getting reports of a roving gang of armored men. Patrollers they are called and the stories we’re hearing about them has many citizens frightened.

Carmen stabbed the radio off, knowing that any more scary news would only serve to make the trip harder. You’re going to make it, Carmen! She told herself. You’re going to survive this and your Mama will survive this too! Someday, you will tell your children and your grandchildren about that week when the world went loco! But you are going to make it! You are going to —

A gang of vagrants leapt from behind a dumpster and onto the street, rags hanging off their rail-thin bodies. Teeth bared and eyes narrow, they emitted high-pitched chirps and moved forward in lurches, like rats creeping up to their prey. 

They closed in on the jeep, forcing Carmen to veer into the alley and speed through it, never mind those thumps against the bumper.  

As she reached speeds near seventy, she kept going through another alley, then another. But a pickup truck at the block’s end startled her with a sudden lurch back, sending her foot to the brakes not nearly in time. 

With a metallic bang, the car came to a violent spin, tossing her around the jeep’s driver seat like a limp rag, body yanked back first by the seat belt then forward, elbows crashing with the steering wheel until she nearly fell to the floor.

The spin ended with a half-second of quiet. Carmen caught her breath, surveying the damage. Smoke floated from the now crumpled hood, driving no longer an option. 

Footsteps closed in slowly. She reached for the dashboard, eyes wide, head swiveling. Somebody was coming. She turned and found them. The gang was on its way, creeping closer, cackling, chirping. Their bodies swayed with menace.

Carmen snapped her seat belt away, shoved the door open and sprang free. Her first clunky step sent her tumbling into a pile of greasy rags, but she reached for the jeep’s door and pulled herself to her feet, climbing up and finding full speed within seconds.

She scampered down the alley as the gang’s laughter followed. She picked up speed, teeth clenched and limbs swinging wildly. The gang’s noise fell further back, then faded. But that didn’t stop her or even slow her down. She had to get away, back to the bunker — or at least someplace safe. 

The place she chose was a set of recycling bins, tucking her body between them. This gave her time to collect her thoughts, figure out where she was, map out a plan. But time was running out. She could feel it.

Then came metallic clanks along the sidewalk that could only mean one thing. Patrollers. 

Hitting the pavement in lockstep, they got closer and closer...

Carmen did her best to keep hidden, making her body small, crouched tight, knees against her chest, face ducked between them. Slender frame carefully placed behind the plastic recyclable bins. 

She took short, sharp breaths, afraid her gasps could be heard through her gas mask. Then came a silent pep talk, It’s going to be okay, It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay. Maybe they’d slip past her, not notice her behind the bins. If they didn’t, she could make it to the ranch. She could survive. Even if they chased her, she could duck inside the bunker’s blast door, race down the steps and she’d be free. Knowing she had a chance buoyed her spirits, kept her from spiraling out of control. 

But the patrollers were coming. No doubt about it. 

She could hear those footsteps gaining in volume, speed, intensity. She’d heard patrollers didn’t like it when they had to chase you. 

Eyes widened by alarm, Carmen leaned through the recycling bins and gave the landscape a scan. On her left, a charred bicycle fluttered in the wind, its pedals spinning, its frame twisted into a knot of bright pink. 

Next to the bike, steam rose from the sewers, thick and dark-hued like the smoke of burning tires. A small, tube-like object oozed from its opening, too far away for Carmen to discern, but it frightened her just the same. Whatever it was glistened slick in the moonlight and slithered like a snake. Was it a dislocated water moccasin? A mutated giant worm? The arm of somebody trapped beneath?

In the middle of the street, sat a severed hand, fingers splayed, the nails blackened and curled at the tip. The hand’s flesh — what was left of it — dangled from its bones like an unfinished meal.

Yanking her head back behind the bins, Carmen slammed her eyes shut and swallowed a gasp. She then tried to slow her breathing — or at least keep it quiet. The patrollers were just beyond her now, creeping closer at a snail’s pace, as if teasing her. 

In the distance, she could see The Blaze still burning. Skyscrapers lit up the horizon like angry fireflies. A half a block to her left was the playground, now a tangle of multicolored metal half-buried in sand. If she could get there, the ranch was only a sprint away. All she needed was a place to hide. 

What was once a twelve foot slide was now a slab of dented steel poking through the sand. Beside that lay two candy striped poles, brittle and bent. A see-saw leaned against a rusted carousel, both items rising no higher than three or four feet. She’d need something else, something to offer more shelter.

Across the street from the playground an overturned dumpster snagged her attention, its lid clanging shut from wind gusts every few seconds. This was a place she could tuck her body behind, a place to hide and stay hidden until she could make a final race to the ranch. But she’d have to hurry because the patrollers were now closing in. 

A voice startled her. Walk and scan! The voice demanded through tinny speakers. 

Footsteps scattered into every direction. It was only a matter of time before one of them stepped past her. Or toward her.

Seconds later, she saw one, his silhouette imposingly outlined by the moonlight. It was the first time she’d seen a patroller with her own eyes and the sight brought her body to a tremble. 

She’d heard about them of course. Who hadn’t? They patrolled the area, armed and shielded, every inch of their bodies steel-plated save for their faces — the only things human about them.

This one was as scary as the ones who’d roamed her imagination. His legs motored ahead with robotic precision, his spine, rigid as if strapped to a pole. Steel pads flared from his shoulders and caged his jaw while a thin layer of metal hugged his bald head. He turned from side to side, then stopped when he saw something ahead. He stepped toward Carmen, crouched and narrow-eyed like a hunter creeping up on its prey.  

But to Carmen’s relief, he walked past her and instead lunged for a sleeping cat. When it woke suddenly and leapt away, he kept walking. 

Just behind her, he kicked over a garbage can with a rattle that sent her pulse throbbing and hands jittering. A moment of quiet followed, but a voice roughly ten feet behind her signaled more danger on the way. Scan! Scan!

A new set of footsteps eased up to her. The tinny voice over the small speakers came with it. Scan and search, The voice said, as if shouting commands to a great Dane. The commands got louder and louder. With her options running thin, she needed an escape plan. 

She rose to a crouch, slowly finding her feet and steadying her nerves. 

The voice from behind edged closer, Faster! Faster! Scan and search!

She darted away, down the street toward the dumpster, breathless and desperate. She then jumped behind it, leaving a cloud of puzzled faces behind her. This told her she hadn’t been spotted, meaning, for the moment, she was safe. Great news. Now she only had to get to the ranch.

Carmen could see the pine picket fence, its panels half-busted open so getting inside wouldn’t be a problem. Of course it also meant the patrollers could follow her inside the yard. But they couldn’t follow her into the bunker. She’d be safe behind that blast door. She’d be home.

First she had to collect her breath and still her shaking body. She looked back and saw them, all four gathered around a battered refrigerator laid on its side. It wasn’t clear what they were after, but as long as something else had their attention, she was safe. 

One patroller flipped his rifle butt-first and pounded at the refrigerator’s opening. The rest soon joined in until the door snapped open, revealing the shaking body of a vagrant, his hands lifted into a frightened surrender, his face exploding into a slow-motion scream. 

All at once, they brought their rifles to his chest and fired.

Horrified, Carmen buried her mask’s opening in both hands just in time to muffle a scream. With the patrollers focused elsewhere, this was the