The Effacing (Book 1.5): Valley's End by T. Anwar Clark

DAY IV
     
     
      Automatic gunfire echoe d from the south end of 7 th Street.
      Jim hit the next block corner, took cover behind a bullet-riddled van, reloaded. Panting, he calmed himself, lifted the warm chamber of his 30 round fully loaded TP9 semi-automatic pistol to his right temple, and lipped a prayer his mother taught him when he was just a kid.
      He was grown now, 23 to be exact, and in a situation he’d never encountered. His black hooded sweatshirt, covered in the mud he’d slipped in while eluding his predators. His black threadbare jeans, filthy, felt the worst of a razor-wired fence he’d scaled not too long ago – just a pixel off from slicing into his muscular framed dark skin – to escape the clutches of the enemy. His black work boots, a reeking shit-stain brown. The sun, slowly cascading behind the dense smoke that traveled across the building structures that would have, in any other circumstance, provided cover from his antagonists, a new kind of enemy hot on his trail. And Girder still hadn’t made it around the corner.
      The streets weren’t safe to travel at night – anymore – and Jim realized that if he did not reach a safe zone within the next few minutes or so, he would not stand a chance in the sweltering darkness… alone.
      Where are you ?
      He contemplated his next risky move, anxious to avoid the company pursuing him, gazing further up the street through the maze of abandoned vehicles and debris that occupied the area. To his left, mildly burning brick, three story project buildings a couple blocks down, through another labyrinth; to his right, a darkened, unoccupied two story high school, too far out, behind a row of condos and duplexes.
      He wasn’t that far behind. He should have been here by now , Jim nervously thought, racking his brain, to make his decision, to wait or run, and in which direction, a few seconds more.
       He broke into a long-winded sprint toward the projects.
      “Jim! Jim!” Girder called out from behind. “Hold up!”
      “Through here, man, hurry!” Jim hollered back, without turning to see him, recognizing his long-time friend’s voice.
      Jim made it to an alley, turned around and lifted his semi-automatic, finger on the trigger, left hand cupped under the clip. Spotted his comrade about twenty yards out, rising and sinking, hobbling, desperately fighting his way toward him.
       Girder’s all-black attire was also abused and ragged. He didn’t have Jim’s ability to run as fast, held his SCAR 16s battle rifle in one hand, a gunshot-wounded leg that he nursed with the blood-leaking other. If Jim would have known that, he would have turned to help his injured affiliate get to cover.
    “Come on, Gird. Hurry up!” Jim instructed, scrolling his sight past Girder, ensuring he wasn’t tailed.
      He was alone.
      “They got me, man. They got me.” he admitted, as he caught up.
      Jim grabbed Girder’s rifle, slung the strap across his thick neck, held Girder underneath the arm and assisted him through the cut in route to the projects. And the roaring sounds of a diesel fueled motorcade excelled from the block corner where they had escaped.
      “We’ll be at The End in no time, but you gotta pick up the pace, Gird, they right behind us.” Jim informed his maimed partner, looking back, ensuring they weren’t spotted.
      “Don’t let ‘em get me, Jim!”
      “We’re almost there. Come on.”

CHAPTER 1
     
     
            She pressed har d on the gas.
       Her experienced eyes were trained on the disastrous road that lay ahead, leaving everyone else just two miles back over an hour ago. Her black hair, matted together and drying. Her guilty and fragile hands firmly gripped the steering wheel. And as the wearing sun tried its damnedest to pry its way through the murky fumes above, she slung the filthy poncho’s black hood over her head to omit the rays, and flipped the dusty visor from overhead.
      “What is