Hero: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 7)

by Tom Abrahams

  “We’ve got your kid, David. And now they’re coming back for you.”

  Lou grabbed the soldier’s rifle and hopped to the other side of the horse before crouch running back to Andrea’s side. She tried focusing on the coming threat now, saving her fire until they were closer. She didn’t know how many rounds she had left. The one she’d given to Andrea wasn’t fully loaded either.

  She could see seven horses racing toward them now. There was no way they could kill all of them. No way.

  “You’re gonna get us killed!” cried the woman holding the infant. “Stop it. Stop it! You’re going to get our children killed! We have babies!”

  Lou checked with Andrea. “You good?”

  Andrea nodded. “Thank you. No matter what happens, thank you.”

  Lou didn’t know what to say. You’re welcome? No problem? Sure thing? Any time? None of those rang true. She regretted what she’d done. The woman with the infant was probably right. She was going to get them all killed. And now they had her son.

  She’d been foolish. This was not what Martin Luther King Junior meant about sacrifice. It couldn’t be. Not even Marcus Battle would do what she’d done, leaving her child behind to go help strangers. But there was no going back now. She couldn’t undo it. The best she could do was try to salvage an untenable situation.

  Lou peered over the top of the horse’s body again and counted five horses. Where were the other—?

  Then she saw the truck speeding across the flat. Two of the horses were riding toward the truck.

  “Now,” Lou said, staring at the five horses approaching her. “We’re better to do it now than wait.”

  She leaned against the horse, her belly straining against her shirt, the child sitting low against her pelvis. A shot of pain ran down her leg. She winced, gritted her teeth, and took aim.

  The rifle kicked against her shoulder. Hot casings pinged to the ground beside her. Smoke drifted from the end of the barrel. Andrea joined in, and together they unloaded their weapons at the advancing hostiles. Two of them went down. Three left, plus the two taking aim at the truck.

  Who was in the truck? Was it her meet? The tardy conductor who was supposed to house her until Marcus and Dallas arrived or until she was out of time and had to move again?

  The three horsemen were closing in. To her left, Lou heard screaming. In front of her, the dead horse shifted with the thump of incoming fire.

  Lou pressed the trigger again. It clicked. She was out of ammunition. Glancing to her left, she saw Andrea hunkered down, holding her boy, the rifle on the ground next to them. Lou reached across them and picked up the weapon. Leveling it at the horses now only twenty feet from her, she pulled the trigger. A round zipped by her head. Her weapon clicked.

  Lou tossed it aside and slid down behind the horse. The gunfire stopped for an instant, and she reached for the handgun at her waist. She turned back and saw the horses were no longer coming for her. They’d turned and were bolting for a fourth horse.

  The trailing soldier was close enough that she took a single shot with the handgun. She targeted his back, lifted the barrel slightly, and applied pressure to the trigger. It hit the rider between his shoulder blades. He was thirty yards from her when he arched, grabbed at his back as if stung, and then fell awkwardly from his ride.

  There were two horsemen headed for the lone stranger. Lou stood from behind the dead horse. A sudden wave of tension clutched her body, and she dropped back onto a knee, balancing herself on the still-warm hide of the dead horse.

  She groaned through clenched teeth and held her belly low, the gun still in her hand. The pressure intensified, sharpening and stealing her breath.

  “You okay?” asked Andrea. She reached a hand toward Lou, touching her leg.

  Lou winced again, breathing shallowly. She clutched the damp underside of her belly and grabbed a handful of shirt.

  Andrea’s eyes widened with a realization. “Are you in labor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lou. “I hope not.”

  ***

  Marcus held his knees tight against the saddle, keeping himself balanced and upright. He held a rifle with both hands. The butt to his shoulder, his stiff finger on the trigger, he took his first shot. It missed.

  The two riders were close now. Marcus saw their eyes. He saw the sweat on their brows. Both had their weapons raised. They had a bead on him. Without his hands on the reins, he couldn’t adjust course. One of them fired. Then the other. The first round zipped past him. The second grazed his arm. The sting was hot against his flesh, like someone had run a burning ember across his bicep. He flinched but held his aim and targeted the rider closer to him as they rode past each other.

  The rider’s eyes went wide and he reached for his side and lost his balance, dropping his weapon as he steadied himself. Marcus couldn’t see him as he rode away from them, but he knew he’d hit him.

  Marcus lowered his weapon and grabbed the reins with his left hand. He jerked the horse to the right, back toward the water, and headed for the women and children.

  As he sped back, the horse kicking up dust and dirt, the sun shining down on him, Marcus stole a glance to his right. Only one soldier remained on his horse. The other was slumped in the saddle.

  Marcus kicked his heels into the horse and closed the distance between his horse and the water’s edge. He counted a half dozen women. There were children too. One woman held a bundle in her arms by her neck. An infant?

  Marcus pulled back on the reins and slowed the horse. He raised his weapon and scanned the women with it. “Lou?” he shouted. “Louise? Are you there?”

  None of the women responded. He stopped the horse, rifle in hand, and dismounted. He marched toward the water, conscious of the soldier still approaching on his horse.

  “Lou?” he shouted again. No response.

  Then an arm shot up from behind a dead horse, the middle finger raised. The skin was brown. Marcus’s chest swelled. His heart pounded in his ears and he limped as fast as he could toward her. Then he stopped, feet from the horse. He could see her legs splayed on the ground, peeking out from the horse’s body. A shot zipped past him, the crack echoing in the dry air. Marcus whirled around, pushing his weight on the better of his two legs, raised the rifle, and tracked the approaching horseman. He pulled the trigger and the weapon barked. Two. Three. Four rounds. At least one of them hit the rider, and he lifted from the saddle before sinking back down. He clutched at his gut with one hand and tried to fire off a shot with the other, but he couldn’t and lost the rifle before Marcus hit him with another skillful shot. The horse bucked its head and changed course, racing off toward the abandoned neighborhood to the west.

  Marcus lowered his rifle. Limping, his knuckles throbbing, his back aching, he inched toward Lou. Ignoring the cries and complaints of the other women and their children, he moved past the horse, and a simpering, sweating, much older Lou came into view.

  For the first time in a very long time, tears formed in his eyes. He didn’t even know he could cry anymore. He thought he was out of tears. He blinked past the blur, conscious of the wet drops streaking down his cheeks. He stopped, standing feet from her. His chin twitched, not quite quivering.

  He cleared his throat. “Lou?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

  Through pained breaths and winces, she locked eyes with him. The faintest hint of a smile edged the corner of her mouth. “Dorothy, I almost didn’t recognize you. You look older than dirt.”

  He laughed. It was genuine. “I know.”

  “I don’t even think the wizard can help you,” she said.

  “Maybe not.”

  “Brains, heart, and courage are one thing. A whole new face is something else.”

  “Okay, I get it. But seriously, you’re gonna criticize me? You’ve gained a lot of weight. And that’s not easy in a drought. I think you need to go vegan.”

  Lou’s hint of a smile spread into a grin. Tears welled and she half laughed, half cried. A bub
ble formed in her mouth and popped.

  Marcus tossed the weapon to the dirt and took another couple of steps toward her. Gingerly, and with considerable pain, he lowered himself onto his good knee. He reached out a hand to her. She took it and he pulled her toward him.

  They embraced. Marcus wasn’t sure if the sobbing was hers or his own. As they held each other, he whispered to her, “Dallas has David. He’s okay. I mean he’s safe. He’s not okay. You gave him a stupid middle name. He’ll never be okay.”

  Lou slapped his back and squeezed again before pulling back. She blinked at him and wiped the tears from her face with the back of a grimy hand. Then she glanced at his arm. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Grazed,” said Marcus. “I’ll be fine.”

  “But never okay,” she said.

  “True.”

  She ran her fingers along the side of his face, tracing the deep creases. Like a child studying a father’s face, she ran her thumb on his white stubble. “I’m not kidding,” she said. “You do look old.”

  “You don’t look so good yourself,” he said, inching back from her. “And I’m serious. You’re pale. Your heart is pounding. You’re clammy.”

  “I might be in labor. I’m not sure. I’ve had a couple of contractions over the past few days since I left the house.”

  She shifted against the horse and put both hands on her belly, motioning with her head toward the woman next to her. “This is Andrea,” she said. “She and the other women were going to be sold.”

  Marcus surveyed the carnage at the water’s edge and beyond it the women with their children. Some of them stood. Others sat. All of them had vacant, bewildered looks on their drawn faces. A couple of them rocked with children in their laps. His attention turned back to Andrea. “Coyotes?”

  “Worse,” said Andrea. “Most of us paid coyotes to get us to safe places so the Pop Guard wouldn’t take our kids. The coyotes sold us out to these two. They’re brokers. They sell women and kids to the tribes.”

  Marcus looked at the woman’s boy. He was curled against her as if he couldn’t get closer to his mother.

  She pointed at the man’s body closest to them. “That one was pure evil,” she said. “Pure evil. He was sadistic. Heartless. He killed a woman who couldn’t keep up. Shot her. She’d just given birth on the highway. She had a newborn and he shot and killed her.”

  Andrea’s face widened with the horror of what she’d seen. Deep lines creased her face. They weren’t from age, Marcus reckoned. They were sun-aggravated stress lines.

  “Lou helped us,” she said. “If it hadn’t been for her, we’d be on our way to slaughter.”

  Marcus looked at Lou. She was navel-gazing, rubbing her belly. The sweat had matted her hair to the sides of her face.

  He could still see the little girl in her, the feral creature who’d flung knives at him outside an abandoned gas station near a Dairy Queen on Highway 36 outside Rising Star. He remembered the Astros ball cap sideways on her head.

  She’d stood across from him, her fingers wiggling at her side and her head tilting to both sides as she cracked her neck. Her glare, he recalled, was the nastiest thing he’d seen on any person before or since.

  Lou had been a gangly preteen who hadn’t grown into her body or her enormous feet. She’d flung the blade at him so quickly, he hadn’t seen her produce it. So much had happened since then.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her.

  Lou looked up. “For what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Huh,” she said. “Anything specific?”

  Marcus grinned. “I’m sure there is. Too much for now. I can run down the list later. Let’s get you back to your husband and son. And I guess we need to figure out what to do with these folks.”

  “Marcus?” Lou said.

  “Yeah?”

  Her eyes glistened; her chin quivered. “Thanks for coming for me.”

  Marcus didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t for a lack of words, it was the overabundance of them. A thousand things flooded his mind, and none of them captured how he felt. None of them was good enough, so he didn’t say anything. He took a deep breath and blew it out.

  They were together again.

  He’d come so far. He had so much farther to go.

  CHAPTER 25

  APRIL 20, 2054, 3:20 PM

  SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS

  BAIRD, TEXAS

  Norma stepped into the barn and slid the wide door closed behind her. Rudy was sleeping soundly for the first time since the attack on their property. This was her first opportunity to slip away. Thankfully it fit with the prearranged time she’d agreed to be here.

  The smell of sawdust and hay comforted her, drawing a dim smile, and she crossed the barn to the large wooden table pressed against the wall. On the table was a collection of electronic boxes and wires. They were powered by a lone solar cell purchased on the black market and affixed to the barn’s roof. It produced enough electricity to charge a bunch of golf cart batteries they’d wired together to run the electronics and spin a lone fan hanging from the barn’s roof.

  The electronics were, more specifically, radios. Rudy had helped Norma cobble together a functional and, given their circumstances, impressive high frequency transceiver that provided communication with the outside world. On a good night, Norma could talk to people in Mexico, Canada, and both coasts of the North American continent. She’d once connected with someone who claimed to be in Havana, Cuba. Another instance had her talking with a soldier in Cayenne, French Guiana.

  The high frequency radio transmitted on all bands from 80 meters, all the way up to the 6 meter band. In the summertime, in the middle of the day, she got the best distance. Winter time at night was the worst for trying to reach far off ham operators.

  Late afternoon in April, with the temperatures as warm as they were, should provide her enough of a push to find the person for whom she was searching. She hoped so. It was critically important. Especially given the change of plans.

  Norma didn’t have a license to use the radio. Most people didn’t anymore. There wasn’t an agency to test or enforce whether or not a given operator knew the rules of the road for short- or long-distance communication. She did, however, know enough about her equipment to get by and to have productive conversations.

  One by one, she flipped the switches and dials to their respective positions. She made certain the antenna was matched to the transceiver, and initiated the call, pressing the mic key.

  “Hello, this is NGBTX1,” she said, identifying herself with a nonregulation call sign. “Is the frequency busy?”

  She waited a moment. No response.

  “Hello,” she repeated. “This is NGBTX1. Is this frequency busy?”

  Silence. Then a crackle and a high-pitched noise.

  One more time, Norma checked for traffic. Finally, she got a response. A woman’s voice came through the speaker.

  “GA, NGBTX1, I hear you. GA. This is GFAGA5. I hear you. QRO?”

  “Good afternoon,” said Norma. “No, your signal is good. No need to increase power. Nice to talk with you.”

  Norma understood most of the Q signals and CW abbreviations ham radio operators commonly used in their transmissions, but she didn’t use them much. It was like understanding a foreign language without the ability to recall it quickly enough to speak it.

  Even though she recognized the woman’s voice on the other end of the line, she had to be sure it was her and that nobody was listening. They had a code for this. The Pop Guard, and the government in general, regularly monitored amateur radio. They’d use the information they gleaned in various oppressive operations.

  “Been a long time since San Angelo,” said Norma. “I hear it’s changed.”

  Norma took her finger off the mic key and waited for the reply. She held her breath.

  “Especially Pearl on the Concho,” the woman responded. “The river is dry.”

  She exhaled. A dry river meant all was c
lear. A flooded river meant there were problems.

  “Good to hear,” said Norma. “How is your guest? Doing well, I hope?”

  “Yes,” said the woman. “She’s doing well and should be ready for your arrival. Bags are packed.”

  Norma adjusted the volume on the speaker and decided to plug in a headset. Uncoiling the cable, she plugged the quarter-inch pin into the transceiver. The external speaker went mute, and she slipped on the large over-the-ear headset. The cushions had cracked, and foam poked through, scratching her ears, but this was safer than using the external speaker should someone show up unannounced. Not that she expected any visitors. But there was a good chance the Pop Guard would come back looking for their dead compadres.

  Norma checked over one shoulder and then the other. Her pulse quickened. She pressed the mic key again and leaned into the microphone to lower her voice. “We are delayed,” she said. “Complications changed the departure and the route.”

  There was a pause. In her mind, Norma could see the woman on the other end of the line. She imagined the lines of consternation deepen on her face. Of course, the version of the woman Norma imagined was younger than in reality. It had been years since they’d seen each other face-to-face.

  “We’ll adjust,” said the woman. “Not a problem. I’ve heard from our Gun Barrel friend. She is aware. How many travelers?”

  The woman’s voice was so much stronger, more confident than it had been when the two of them spent so much time together. Then, she was quiet, reserved, introverted. Now she had the command of a general.

  Norma pressed the mic. “It’s good to know Gun Barrel shared with you. At least two passengers,” she said. “As many as five.”

  “As we planned, then. That’s good.”

  “Yes,” said Norma. “At least that’s good.”

  In truth, both of the women knew there was a possibility that Lou, David, Marcus, and Dallas would never reach their contact beyond the wall. They knew the wilds of Texas were nearly as dangerous as they’d been under Cartel rule, under the hand of the Dwellers, and under the lawless outlaws known as the Llano River Clan, the LRC.