“No, no, I just… You’ve got a fever. Seems like it’s getting worse.”
She sat up and drew her back against the inner wall of the truck. She started unwrapping her bandage.
“Christ,” she grumbled. “Of all the injuries, I never thought a stupid arrow would be the one to take me down.”
“You’re not down yet.”
Timothy leaned closer for a better look. The flesh around the wound had festered fast.
“We need to get you antibiotics,” he said.
“And where do you think you’ll find those?”
“Maybe they have some at the depot. I can go look while you rest.”
“You’re not going alone.” She swung her legs out of the back of the truck. “I’ll go with you.”
She stepped out, wobbled, and then reached out for Timothy. He helped her sit back down.
“You were saying…” he said quietly.
Ruckley put a hand on her head. “I… I’m dizzy.” She sighed. “You’re right.”
“You’re not going anywhere. I’ll do a supply run. It’s our only shot of getting to Boston alive.”
She reached for her water bottle, and he helped her drink what was left. Then he helped her lay down in the truck and then closed one of the doors.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
Timothy grabbed a map they had found and his gear. Rifle in hand, he crossed through the garage and then peered out the window of a side door to check the parking lot for hostiles. Finding it clear, he went outside, the cold afternoon wind numbing his exposed face.
He scanned the buildings and houses down the street, but nothing in the ghost town stirred.
According to the map, the depot was three miles away. Three miles wasn’t a terribly long distance, but Timothy’s feet were already swollen and sore. He was exhausted from the hours they had already been hiking.
Plenty of large million-dollar houses lined the streets but searching them would be futile. All the broken windows and busted doors told him any useful supplies were already long gone.
Rifle at the ready, he started down a road toward a bridge over the Merrimack River. Moving during daylight was risky if there were collaborators out here, but night wasn’t that much better with Variants hunting in the dark.
Besides, Ruckley might not have until nightfall.
He spotted a bicycle on the side of the road, but the tires were flat.
So much for luck today.
When he reached the bridge, he scoped the other side. Seeing nothing, he ran across as fast as he could. A few damaged boats were still in slips at the harbor, and there was a sailboat that looked in pretty good shape.
At one mile under his belt, he stopped to catch his breath and check his map. The depot was two miles to the west on a peninsula.
He crossed a street and headed into another neighborhood rife with more abandoned mansions. Trash and abandoned cars littered the road ahead.
Empty suitcases were open on the front stoop and driveway of one house. Evidence of a failed exodus from the first war.
With a sigh, he continued. The wind died down, and he suddenly felt an odd sensation. As he neared the depot, he stopped, listening.
There didn’t seem to be anyone or anything out here. Not even Variants.
An overwhelming sense of loneliness gripped him. Like he was the last man on Earth.
He pressed on until he saw the depot. Using a car for cover, he crouched and pressed the scope to his eye.
There were two connected buildings at the depot. One was an older structure made of brick. The other was a longer warehouse. Both were enclosed by a razor wire-topped fence that had crashed down in a twenty-foot section.
A bulldozer and a Jeep Wrangler with flat tires were parked outside the closed warehouse garage doors. At the front entrance of the brick building, he saw a dirt bike on its side.
Timothy set off for a better view of the back, only stopping when he saw bodies across the corpse-covered asphalt. The back loading bay into the building was open. There were more bodies inside, some wearing fatigues.
Whatever had happened here hadn’t been too recent, judging by the smell of rot wafting in the cool air.
He headed over the toppled fence, careful not to snag his clothing on the razor wire. After hopping over the wire, his boots hit the pavement with a thud.
The sound sent a chill through his body.
He froze, waiting for the shriek of a beast to answer. When it didn’t come, he crept toward the loading bay, passing the bodies. The recent rains had mostly washed the blood away in the parking lot, but the inside of the garage was speckled with dried pools around the corpses of both men and monsters.
Timothy navigated the graveyard and looked for a door into the offices and supply rooms. There were two. One was open, and the other closed.
He tried the closed one first. It clicked, locked.
Then he entered the opened door and followed a carpeted hallway, boots crunching over spent casings. Light streaming through open doors guided him, revealing a blood trail across blue carpet.
It streaked off into the second open doorway leading from the hall.
Timothy checked the first room, an office furnished with a handful of metal desks, a few chairs, and rows of file cabinets. But no medicine or water.
He continued to the next doorway. It led to a supply closet where the blood streaks pointed to the body of a Variant. He nudged it with a boot, finding it was as stiff as a board.
The closet contained only cleaning and office supplies.
His thoughts turned back to Ruckley, wondering how long she would make it by herself. Would it be the Variants or infection that got her first? Either way, he needed to hurry.
Timothy continued down the hallway, clearing each room. Blood spatters marred the interior all the way toward the doorway connecting the brick building to the warehouse.
He opened it and aimed his rifle into the heart of the depot. The windows were all covered by boards or metal plates, blocking out the sunlight. He turned on his tactical light and swept it over the space, revealing a large room with shelves of supplies and closed doors with signs showing they led to the barracks.
This place was a treasure trove.
He set off into the rows of shelves to search for medicine, sifting over the shelves with his light, examining the crates and boxes.
Nothing in the first aisle grabbed his attention. But a rustling noise stopped him mid-stride. Then silence. He waited for the sound again.
He heard it again, this time more clearly.
Just the wind on the side of the building.
Timothy continued his search until he found a shelf of medicine. Someone had already raided it, leaving bloody handprints on the boxes.
But there was still plenty left. He scrounged through the cardboard boxes until he found a handful of packets filled with antibiotics. He stuffed them into his pack. Then he grabbed a field kit that had everything he needed to clean Ruckley’s wound.
Hell yes, finally some decent luck, he thought.
When he turned to leave, a figure stood in the open doorway of a side room. They were shadowed but it looked like they had a gun pointed at him.
“Don’t shoot,” Timothy said. “I’m just here for medicine to help an injured Army Ranger.”
The figure kept the gun on him for a moment.
Was this a collaborator? Maybe another cultist?
The guy had the drop on him, and Timothy knew he couldn’t bring his rifle up in time to fire.
Running wasn’t an option either.
He had been caught dead-to-rights.
“Please, I don’t want trouble,” Timothy said. “I just need medicine and water and I’ll leave.”
The figure lowered the gun and leaned against the wall. Timothy raised his rifle just enough to let his tac light illuminate the figure.
It was a soldier
.
The bearded man slumped against a wall, gripping a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his gut.
Timothy rushed over and set his rifle down. He caught a whiff of something putrid as he leaned down.
“Sir,” he said.
The man grunted and pushed at the ground to sit up. That’s when Timothy saw everything from his ribs to his crotch were soaked with blood.
Jesus Christ, how is this guy still alive? Timothy thought.
“Who are you?” the man whispered.
“I’m from Outpost Portland,” Timothy replied. “I escaped a few—”
“What happened to Portland?” the man interrupted. Desperation filled his eyes.
“It was destroyed, sir.”
The man loosened his grip and let out a whimper.
“My family…” he said. “My family was there.”
Timothy put a hand on the man’s shoulders as tears streamed over the man’s face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I lost my dad and friends, too.”
The guy looked up, blinking past the tears.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen…things were supposed to get better.”
Timothy felt this man’s raw pain. Reaching down, he grabbed his hand, connecting with a soldier he didn’t even know.
“Let me help you,” Timothy said. “I’ll get those bandages changed.”
“No… My family’s gone. No point in fighting anymore.”
He pulled his hand away from the bandage. Then he reached into his vest and fingered around before pulling out a key.
“There’s a dirt bike outside,” he said. “Got some juice left in it. Take it and get those meds back to your friend. There’s water inside the room behind me and some ammo.”
Timothy took the key. “I can’t take your water and ammo.”
“You need it more than me.”
Timothy hesitated. He hated asking this man for anything else, but he had to. “What about a radio?”
The soldier shook his head. “Long story, but there was another survivor. He took it with him when he left.”
Timothy wasn’t sure what to say, so he gave the man’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’re sure about all this?”
“Yes, kid. Now go.”
He helped the soldier readjust his body so he was resting against the wall comfortably.
“Thank you, I won’t forget this,” Timothy said. He left the man and grabbed the water bottles from the room. Then he grabbed some ammo and made his way outside, not looking back.
He stood the bike up, then hopped on with his backpack full of gear. As it rumbled to life and he drove away, a gunshot cracked from inside the depot.
Timothy said a prayer for the man as he scanned the road for hostiles and twisted the throttle to go faster. The motor was loud, but he made it back to the bridge without being noticed.
Glancing down, he checked the gas gauge.
There wasn’t enough to get to Boston, but there was another way…a dangerous way, but a way nonetheless. He eyed the boats in the harbor off the bridge.
Screw walking the rest of the way, once he got Ruckley cleaned up, they were going to sail to Boston.
***
Nick saw the mountains on the horizon under the gray sky. He could smell the rain in the air, though it hadn’t hit them yet. After a long journey, they were almost back to base.
He couldn’t help but feel like they were limping home, and after leaving the fuel outpost, things hadn’t gotten any better. One of the female prisoners had escaped their ropes and jumped out of the pickup truck.
Nick had asked Pete if they should turn around to look for the prisoner, but Pete had shaken his head.
“If she survived, then she deserves to live,” Pete had said. “Can’t waste the time on one person.”
Then, an hour from the base, the right front tire on the pickup went flat, forcing Nick to stop and change it for the final leg of the drive.
The convoy navigated through a hidden entryway to the forest skirting the mountain. Storm clouds rolled overhead. Lightning forked over the peaks, followed by the growling roll of thunder.
Nick eased off the gas and turned on the wipers as sheets of rain slammed into the windshield.
He knew some of the history behind the place that had become his home. This was one of the most pristine nature preserves in Maine, and the isolated mountain had become part of one of the United States government’s most secretive projects. Only the top officials had even known of the bunker and the single missile silo built during the Cold War.
There was only one missile here for a reason. The nuclear warhead was a prototype that rivaled the Tsar Bomb, arguably one of the most powerful weapons ever created. This was a deterrent the government had created and hidden away, almost lost to time.
And now it was a secret weapon of the New Gods.
For Nick, this place had protected his family since the end of the Great War of Extinction, when he had first joined the army of the New Gods after hearing a radio message broadcasting the existence of a safe and powerful community.
He had been hiding in a cabin about fifty miles from here with his wife and two daughters. They had been running out of food and were slowly wasting away. They had had no choice but to risk the long journey through Variant-filled territory to get here. Coming to Katahdin was the best decision he had ever made.
The bunker was more than a refuge. It had symbolized the start of a new way of life.
And Pete was the reason for it all.
Nick looked over at the man with dreadlocks. The former defense contractor had known about this base because of his classified work keeping it updated at the turn of the century before it was almost all decommissioned. There were multiple former military officers who had worked here, defected from the military, and now called this place home. They had handed over the authenticator codes for the silo to Pete years ago.
Pete had then introduced this base to the human allies of the Variants, long after those in the government who had known about it died during the war.
Now it was one of a handful of forward operating bases they were using to support their offensive to secure the Land of the New Gods.
“Can’t wait for a shower,” Pete said.
“And a warm meal,” Nick said. But what he really looked forward to was seeing his family.
He pulled onto a steep dirt road leading to the bunker’s entrance. The tires thumped over the rocky ground now wet with rain-soaked mud.
The prisoners in the back of the truck ahead huddled together, enduring the full brunt of the cold rainfall like livestock might. But Nick didn’t feel any sympathy for them.
These people were still the enemy. He wouldn’t worry about their comfort until they swore allegiance to the New Gods like he had.
He slowed the truck as they came around another muddy bend. A figure emerged from behind a cluster of rocks on the side of the road carrying a sniper rifle. The man raised a hand as they passed. He was one of many lookouts around the bunker.
Nick probably passed a half-dozen more snipers without even knowing it. Even he didn’t know exactly where all their scouts were positioned.
The road twisted through a thick slope filled with pine trees. It ended as the canopy thinned out at the base of the mountain. Wooden beams blocked off an old mining shaft that dated back to the Prohibition era.
All sorts of tunnels snaked through the mountain that had once been used to store and brew bootleg booze during the early nineteen-hundreds.
The trucks stopped and two more guards showed up to move the beams, allowing them to pass into a narrow corridor. Headlights from the trucks washed over the thick concrete walls of the tunnel.
This was the side entrance to the base, but there were other exits and entrances across the mountain, including those that housed the ballistic missile.
Nick parked in a bay where other vehicles like Jeeps and pickups were lined up in neat row
s. Four guards stood sentry outside a steel door.
“Welcome back,” said one of the men.
“Get these prisoners inside,” Pete said. “Rest of you, unload the trucks. Nick, meet me in the command room in thirty minutes.”
The men did as ordered. Nick used the brief break to find his family. He took a stairwell down twenty stories, stopping once to catch his breath. Normally he could handle the stairs, but now he was completely drained.
This attack had rattled him to the core, and after losing Alfred, he was feeling slightly defeated and hadn’t caught a wink of sleep, even when they’d stopped at the fuel depot.
When he saw his wife and daughters eating at a picnic table in the massive living space the families all shared, his fatigue vanished.
“Diana,” he called out.
His wife stood and turned. When she saw Nick, she smiled the same smile he had fallen in love with twenty years ago. Their younger ten-year-old daughter Lily had just shoveled a spoonful of beans in her mouth.
She jumped up, grinning and rushing to hug him.
Freya, their thirteen-year-old, didn’t seem as excited. She swept her frizzled brown hair away from her face and smiled, but it seemed forced.
Nick gave Diana a hug and then pulled Lily in tight. Freya joined them but kept her distance.
“Hey, Dad,” she said coolly.
“How’s everyone?” he asked.
“Good now that you’re home,” Diana said. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving, but I got a meeting in a few minutes. I just dropped down to say hello.”
“You aren’t going to stay?” Lily asked.
Freya looked away, clearly agitated. She had an acidic teenage attitude, and she frequently let out spiteful diatribes about how she hated it here.
Nick could handle her bullheadedness, but it was her questioning the New Gods that had caused the most tension.
The last time she had done that was a month ago.
He still felt bad about slapping her across the face during that outburst, but it had been for her own good. Her protection, in fact. At least she hadn’t spoken out again. That single slap was nothing compared to what the other men would do if they heard her.
Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 3): Extinction Ashes Page 16
