Hunter Wars Omnibus Edition (Books 1 - 3) Read online

  HUNTER WARS

  BOOK ONE

  EVE OF THE HUNTER WARS

  BOOK TWO

  HEAVEN MEETS HELL

  BOOK THREE

  ARMY OF ANGELS

  SD TANNER

  Dedicated to Mousey, Ruffi and Tuffi.

  Brothers to the end.

  Table of Contents

  EVE OF THE HUNTER WARS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE: Another day, another screw up (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWO: A light in the dark (TL)

  CHAPTER THREE: From the light a future comes (Gears)

  CHAPTER FOUR: A way forward (Gears)

  CHAPTER FIVE: Home sweet home (TL)

  CHAPTER SIX: Scavengers & predators (Pax)

  CHAPTER SEVEN: With truth comes the future (Gears)

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Mission Brief (Gears)

  CHAPTER NINE: With truth comes the past (TL)

  CHAPTER TEN: No honor among thieves (Pax)

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Mission Brief (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWELVE: A rose by any other name (Pax)

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Sister of the Marie Celeste (TL)

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Something wicked this way comes (Gears)

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A dog is only as good as its master (TL)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Even hell has a little bit of heaven (Gears)

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A problem shared is a problem halved (Gears)

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Lean on me when you’re not strong (Gears)

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Related by birth (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Every rose has its thorns (Pax)

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: Ducks in a row (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: Old souls with ancient goals (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: How angels are born (Gears & Pax)

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: Battle rattle (Gears)

  EPILOGUE

  HEAVEN MEETS HELL

  CHAPTER ONE: If you build it they will come (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWO: All that glitters might be gold (Captain Ted)

  CHAPTER THREE: Sometimes wrong is right (Gears)

  CHAPTER FOUR: Paradise undone (Gears/Ip)

  CHAPTER FIVE: The devil comes down from Georgia (Ruler)

  CHAPTER SIX: A world at war (Gears)

  CHAPTER SEVEN: First to fight (TL)

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Looking for a soul to steal (Ruler)

  CHAPTER NINE: Carpet bombing isn’t nice (Gears)

  CHAPTER TEN: What’s yours is mine too (Gears)

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Old problems with old solutions (TL)

  CHAPTER TWELVE: He was in a bind, he was way behind (Chuckles)

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Let’s go hunter huntin’ (Gears)

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Looking to make a deal (Ruler)

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Happy talk (TL)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Making friends (Gears)

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Looking for souls to steal (Anna)

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Do two wrongs make a right? (TL)

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Haven and Hell (Survivors)

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Devil’s in the house of the rising sun (Pax)

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: Revenge is a dish best served happy (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: Life is for the living (Pax)

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: Devil deals it hard (Ruler/Ip)

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: There ain’t no place like home (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: When hell meets hell (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: Let me show you how it’s done (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: Seven seconds of heaven (Gears/Ip)

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: Embracin’ the weird (Gears)

  EPILOGUE: Jus’ come on back if you ever wanna try again (Ruler)

  ARMY OF ANGELS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE: For whom the bell tolls (Mackenzie)

  CHAPTER TWO: The British are coming (Philip)

  CHAPTER THREE: Life only moves forward (Gears)

  CHAPTER FOUR: Bogus POTUS (Ruler)

  CHAPTER FIVE: In death there are do-overs (Woman)

  CHAPTER SIX: Embracin’ the weird (Gears)

  CHAPTER SEVEN: When you wish upon a star (Gray)

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Home is where the heart is (Woman)

  CHAPTER NINE: When wrong is right (TL)

  CHAPTER TEN: The price is not right (Pax)

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Bad company (Hull)

  CHAPTER TWELVE: The best laid plan of killers (Ip)

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Failure to launch (Pax)

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Living by faith alone (TL)

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Visions of the dead (Gears)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Bigger mouse, bigger trap (Ruler)

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: From beyond the grave (Gears)

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Information is power (TL)

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Lock and load (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Come into my parlor (Ruler)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Hit the road Jack (Mackenzie)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The mouse that roared (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Best laid plans… (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Little Miss never been right (Gray)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Home is where the heart is (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The price is right (Pax)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Dance of the drag queens (Hull)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: A little slice of heaven (Gears)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Bogus POTUS (Gears)

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Reaper at the gate (Hull)

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: The reaper always wins (Gears)

  EPILOGUE: Opening the gates of hell

  EVE

  OF THE

  HUNTER WARS

  (HUNTER WARS BOOK ONE)

  SD TANNER

  PROLOGUE

  I awake from somewhere past where I have been. There is only now and it is white and clean. There is the man who harms me still. For I am prisoner and he is evil. He hold me still and damages me.

  I see a bald one next to me. It is foolish anyone can see. I hear it whisper. Kill, Kill, Kill. I feel the anger but not with me. I see it thrash so foolishly. But it broke the bonds and now it’s free.

  I hear the cries. I feel their pain. They are dying and silence remains. But I am still held. Still bonded I lie. I am not free. If I am to live I must fight for me.

  I feel pain but I must hurt or I will leave this earth. Success is slow but now I stand. It is time to run to explore this land.

  CHAPTER ONE: Another day, another screw up (Gears)

  Gears adjusted his gun sight. His bulky body looked even heavier in his loaded tactical vest. Hidden behind a dust-covered car, he was watching the three men circling a woman in the open area of the car park.

  ‘Well what have we got here?’

  ‘Hooowheee, we got ourselves some sweeeeet assssss!’

  ‘Hey baby girl, come play with papa.’

  They were taunting her and he wondered why she seemed so relaxed. Doesn’t she know they’re gonna hurt her? Earlier that day, he witnessed the three men shoot a man and young boy for no reason. He had no doubt about what they were planning to do to her. They tracked the men for several hours, trying to work out if they were alone or part of a larger group. Glancing to his left, he saw Pax move and he looked across at him behind another car. TL was to his right about 20 yards away with his gun also trained on the men.

  He sighed. This is not gonna end well, he thought, but what are we gonna do? They couldn’t leave the woman. These men were killers and he was damned sure the woman wouldn’t die easy at their hands. In his opinion, they were the sort of irretrievable vermin who wore out their right to live in the civ
ilized world. Although what little civilization they ever had was well lost now.

  Running a weary hand over his eyes, he remembered he was wearing hard knuckle assault gloves and it only added to his discomfort rather than relieve it. His hands were roughened so badly after years of hard manual work, he wondered why he bothered with the gloves at all.

  ‘Whatdaya wanna do?’ He asked, not caring which of them answered first.

  All three wore radio microphones and earpieces. They joined the U.S. army together aged 18 in ‘92 when none of this technology existed, but they all agreed the radios beat the hell out of waggling fingers and pulling faces at one another in combat.

  Pax replied first and said in a relaxed tone, ‘Drink beer, and enjoy watching some ass or better still get some.’

  ‘Shaddup Pax. You’re a bad guy in the making,’ TL replied abruptly. ‘Gears, we gotta help her. She doesn’t seem to understand what’s going down here.’

  He agreed with TL and he already knew TL wouldn’t abandon the woman. This was the end of the world and TL still thought he could save everyone. He always thought that. The three of them met when they were ten years old and sent to the same foster home. Since then they had never been apart. They might not be brothers by blood, but they were brothers by choice.

  The woman didn’t seem too with it, so he wasn’t sure how they were going to get her away from the guys safely. He said to his brothers, ‘Problem is she’s not helpin’ herself. These guys killed that man and his kid without hesitation. I got no doubt they’ll do same to her.’

  In a decisive tone, Pax said, ‘Shoot ‘em in the head. They’ll be no problem after that.’

  TL voiced his objection equally as decisively, ‘That’s a little extreme, Pax.’

  Pax argued back at TL, ‘They killed that young boy and they’ll kill her too. Ya hesitate. She dies. Ya give those assholes an inch. She dies. Who do ya think deserves to live more, TL? Them or her?’

  He looked over his scope at the situation that was rapidly unfolding. The men were taking their time, but the woman was well within arm’s length of the men. It would be a matter of moments before one of them grabbed her and it might be too late to save her. He made a decision and said, ‘The woman has done nothin’ wrong. We take ‘em down. The tall one in the middle is mine.’

  Pax confirmed his shot, ‘I got the runt on the left.’

  TL confirmed his shot, ‘I’ve got the shot on the one on the right.’

  At any other time this was no way to solve a problem, but a month earlier the world had ended and he wasn’t sure what the definition of normal was anymore. He settled into position and eyed his target through his scope. They each confirmed their targets and fired almost simultaneously. Nice clean shots. Targets down.

  Pax snorted in disgust and said, ‘Goddamn desk jockeys with guns.’

  Pax is right, he thought. It should never have been that easy. Looking up from his scope, he saw the woman still hadn’t moved. She hadn’t even looked in the direction of the gunfire, much less dived for cover. He watched her lean forward slightly, tilt her head and peer at the bodies that now lay bleeding at her feet.

  ‘Hey!’ He called to her. ‘Whatcha doin’?’

  She turned at the sound of his voice and, catching his eye, she broke out into a stunning smile.

  Woman thinks: Their minds were bad I could tell. I read their thoughts and they would kill. I see the man who kept me safe. If not for him, I would be dead. He gave me life I am in debt.

  He thought the woman looked to be in her late 20’s or maybe early 30’s. She had shaggy, dirty blonde hair and a finely sculpted, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and a rosebud mouth. She was wearing a filthy, torn, baggy looking tunic that reached below her knees and tennis shoes that looked too large for her feet. As he drew closer, her blue eyes didn’t look quite right, but he couldn’t work out what was wrong with them.

  The woman beamed happily as they approached her from their hidden positions behind the parked cars. Pax ambled towards the woman and called to his brothers, ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Watching her, he narrowed his eyes, trying to work out why this woman looked so blissful at the sight of three huge, filthy, well-armed men striding towards her.

  Trying not to spook her, TL said gently, ‘Hey hon, what are you doing?’

  The woman looked at TL and then back at him, but continued to smile and said nothing. Trying to understand her odd behavior, he suggested, ‘Maybe she don’t speak English.’

  They’d all done ‘keep the civvies happy’ training in the army and he dredged up an image of the earnest trainer who told them to always wear a smile. Immediately he frowned at the memory of that preppy asshole in a uniform who’d clearly never been on the wrong side of a gun, and then remembered he was supposed to be smiling. TL had a great smile and it literally transformed his face from average Joe to handsome, but he had a deep scar that ran down the right side of his face from his eyebrow to his chin. He’d been told repeatedly by Pax that his relaxed and friendly “resting face” was that of a homicidal killer. The scar didn’t help and it made his smile look strained even when it wasn’t, but he looked directly at the woman and smiled. The woman’s face lit up with delight and she squeaked gleefully, ‘Ip.’

  Woman thinks: These men are strong it can be seen. They want me safe and to be free. I am happy with these three.

  Surprised, Pax asked incredulously, ‘What the hell was that?’

  Immediately losing his poor attempt at a smile, he growled, ‘Ya know what I know, dumbass.’

  Before he could remember any more of his “keep the civvies happy” training, he heard the sound of trucks roaring towards their position. Pax raised his M4A1 towards the trucks. The M4A1 is almost three feet long with a telescopic stock and fully loaded, with the M26 shotgun attachment and flashlight, weighs over 10 pounds. Pax was a huge man with an untidy mop of grey-speckled sandy brown hair, a face with a large rounded lower jaw and a body shaped like an ape. He moved the weapon with ease to cover the incoming truck as he pulled back to use a parked car as cover.

  They were in an open space in a parking lot of a shopping mall. The trucks navigated towards their position and even before they came to a full stop, armed men were spilling out of the vehicles and taking cover some 150 yards away. With so many abandoned cars, there was plenty of cover, but behind them was a low, steep hill. It wouldn’t be easy for them to retreat from what now looked like eight or more heavily armed shooters.

  He grabbed the woman by the arm and dragged her behind a car with him. She didn’t seem concerned by the ruckus of the trucks, the shooters or her new friends. When he glanced behind him, he saw that between the hill and the mall there was an alley. Unfortunately the alley was a dark corridor, which meant it could be home to more than a few hunters. They could shoot out the doors and escape into the mall, but that place would definitely be crawling with hunters and it was a not an option.

  The hunters were the latest evolution of the walking dead. A month ago, people started biting one another like rabid dogs on PCP. Once bitten the victim would instantly turn and attack the living, but when they didn’t have a living target they would shamble about aimlessly. A shambler rotted away, stinking and disintegrating and slowly falling apart until, although still moving, it presented no threat. The less the shambler fed on the living, the faster it rotted.

  Some of the shamblers didn’t rot. They evolved. They lost all of their body hair, fluids and fat and became so lean their skin dried to a leathery brown hide. This evolved shambler became a hunter. Hunting the living would excite them so much their heads would rock from side to side and vibrate back and forth so fast their features would blur. The hunter moved rapidly with fast jerky movements and they never seemed to tire. A shambler could shuffle about all day and night, but the hunters were almost blind in the daylight with exceptional night vision. Being blinded by light was a small concession to an otherwise perfect evolution.

  Li
ke the shamblers, the hunters could only be stopped by detaching the brain from the brain stem and even then they didn’t entirely stop. The head and body kept moving, but once the brain stem was destroyed, the brain no longer controlled the body. A hunter, once down and unable to feed, eventually starved, but it could take weeks or months. It was common these days to see a downed hunter. Once the brain could not control their bodies they collapsed, but didn’t stop moving aimlessly until they starved.

  He looked around and saw there was no easy escape route. He was about to suggest to TL that negotiation might be the better part of valor today, when the shooters opened fire. Pax immediately returned fire while roaring through his mike, ‘What the hell are they doin’?’

  Tucking behind his scope, watching for any movement worth shooting at, he returned fire shouting, ‘Ya know what I know, dumbass.’

  This was turning out to be another really bad day.

  He sighed. Having done their 25 years in the army, they’d been due to retire. Never married. Never had time for a family. They lived cheaply, often sharing quarters and, between them, they’d saved a tidy sum. With that, plus their military pension, they’d planned to go back to the Ranch. Their foster parents, Mom and Pop, were now in their 60’s and needed help running the place. All three felt a strong tie to their foster parents and considered the Ranch their home.

  For the past three years they’d worked as military trainers in the army. When they returned from their last assignment, the plane touched down into hell. The base was on fire, people were running everywhere and the sound of compounded gunfire was deafening. He never understood why the pilot landed at a base that was under attack. They escaped and since then they’d been moving from one insane situation to the next.

  This was just another day in the lunatic asylum the U.S. had become. We’re really screwed, he thought grimly and they really were. The shooters were heavily armed, using sensible enough tactics by remaining well concealed and firing in their direction with annoying accuracy.

  They each carried about 240 rounds for their M4A1s, plus another 60 rounds for their handguns and about 30 rounds for the M26 MASS shotgun attached the M4A1. Their weapons and ammo were usually more than enough to win a firefight with the clerks turned gunslingers in this new Wild West. He lived by the motto of “live to fight another day”, and standing down a bunch of bad shooters long enough to haul ass didn’t need anywhere near the arsenal they carried.