Blood, Sweat & Tears: A Postapocalyptic Novel (The New World Series Book 5)

by G. Michael Hopf

  EPILOGUE

  October 19, 2066

  McCall, Idaho, Republic of Cascadia

  Hunter was on the edge of his seat. “Who was it?”

  “It was…” Gordon said, but a loud knock at the door interrupted him. “Ahh, the steaks.”

  “What, huh?” Hunter asked.

  “Yes, dinner,” Sebastian cheered, jumping up and going to the door. He unlocked it and threw the door open. There in front of him stood an elderly man, about the same age as Gordon.

  “Dinner is served,” the man said, stepping in with a box in his arms.

  “There you are,” Gordon said, getting to his feet slowly.

  “Granddad, aren’t you going to tell me who was on the phone?” Hunter complained.

  “After dinner, come, I want you to meet someone near and dear to me,” Gordon said, waving Hunter over.

  Haley and Hunter followed Gordon.

  Gordon gave the man a big hug and said, “Good to see you, I hope you brought enough for you too?”

  “Oh, I can’t, I need to get home.”

  The man was tall, slightly shorter than Gordon. He had short well-groomed gray hair that was styled conservatively. He had a presence about him that could only be described as confident.

  Haley stepped past Gordon and gave the man a hug. “So good to see you, it’s been so long.”

  “Too long,” the man said.

  “Hunter, Sebastian, come here. I want you to meet a dear friend of mine. Without him I wouldn’t even be here. He helped me more than I can say…”

  “Hold on, you’re being way too generous.”

  “No, I’m not,” Gordon insisted.

  “Yes, you are,” the man said to Gordon then turned to Hunter and Sebastian and said, “He thought so highly of me that he didn’t let me serve with him when he was president.”

  “You served but not in an official manner, I couldn’t risk it. I needed you to be separate. You’re not being fair. I needed you by my side, and you were there through everything. Hell, the fake assassination was your idea.”

  “Only because I really wanted to take you out but decided to just have it as make-believe.”

  “Pfft,” Gordon hissed. “Boys, I owe my life to this man. I’m honored to introduce you to the one and only John Steele.”

  “Holy shit!” Hunter exclaimed. “You’re the John Steele; I read so much about you.”

  “I hope it wasn’t in the gossip columns,” John joked.

  “No, all the stuff you did after independence. You helped revolutionize our banking and judicial systems.”

  “I helped.”

  “That’s not true, we’re taught about how—”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Sebastian said, extending his hand.

  “Same,” John said. “Anyway, I was just dropping these off. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Stay for a drink, I opened that last bottle of scotch,” Gordon insisted.

  John looked at his watch and said, “Fine, twist my arm.”

  “Go put the steaks on,” Gordon ordered Sebastian, who went to task immediately.

  Gordon poured John a drink. They tapped glasses and cheered each other. “So, are you enjoying this old man’s tales?”

  “Thoroughly,” Hunter said.

  “Did he tell you about Nemesis?”

  “Yes,” Hunter replied.

  “Which time?”

  “There were more?” Hunter asked.

  “Two more times,” John answered.

  “Tell me, please,” Hunter pleaded.

  Gordon raised his hand and objected, “Let me tell the stories. I like to keep things in context; otherwise people will get confused.”

  “So where did he leave off?” John teased.

  “With a mysterious phone call, who was it?” Hunter asked.

  John raised the glass and took a large sip. “You know, I’ll let him finish that one. It’s a great one, and that one call would lead to what he called the game changer.”

  “Because it was,” Gordon said confidently.

  “You’re killing me by leaving me with a cliff-hanger,” Hunter protested.

  Haley came over to Hunter’s side and said, “Stop complaining so much, a part of life is anticipation.”

  “Mom, you know I’m not patient.”

  John tipped the glass back and finished the drink. “Thanks for the scotch, and nice meeting you all.”

  They all exchanged farewells, but John couldn’t just leave without tossing out a nugget of information that would lead to hours of conversation. “Oh, I know he won’t want to talk about it, but he should.”

  Gordon shook his head and said, “Don’t say it.”

  “I won’t say it, but you need to take credit for that. No one knows just how he turned the tables that day in Salt Lake City; it’s one of those little nuggets of history that doesn’t even get the respect of being a damn trivia question.”

  “I actually did plan on telling them, don’t you worry,” Gordon said. “Now get out of here, you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

  “By everyone,” John said and left.

  “Let’s go eat,” Gordon said, getting back up and heading towards the kitchen.

  Hunter grabbed Haley and asked, “Mom, why are we here?”

  “He wanted to finally meet you,” she replied.

  “Why now? Timing is everything, and after listening to these stories, he’s a master strategist. This isn’t a grand homecoming, this is something more.”

  “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  “You know something, don’t you?” Hunter asked.

  “I’ll say this; he’s not doing well, health wise.”

  “That’s not it. This isn’t some sweet, long farewell.”

  Haley patted him on the face and said, “You do have some brains up there.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll leave that for him to explain, but I’ll give you a clue. In order for someone to rise to their rightful place, they have to know who they really are and where they come from. You see, your grandfather didn’t believe in it before but became a devout believer in destiny, and he knows that this country’s days are still ahead of it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m hungry, chew on that while I chew on some steak,” Haley said and walked away.

  Hunter watched Haley join the others in the kitchen. He felt so blessed to have this experience even though he didn’t know exactly what that experience truly was, but he was ready for the journey.

  Gordon caught Hunter’s eye and gave him a nod.

  Hunter returned the nod.

  “Grab the bottle and come in here,” Gordon called out.

  Hunter did as he asked and joined the group.

  Gordon poured fresh glasses of scotch. Raising his glass, he said, “Let’s toast.”

  “To steaks,” Sebastian said.

  Hunter said, “To legacy.”

  “Good one.” Haley laughed.

  “What shall it be, Granddad?” Hunter asked.

  “This toast will come as a surprise especially after torturing you all with longwinded stories of the past, but without the past we can’t conquer the future. The past is our great teacher, but we must listen to her. So raise your glass and toast to the future.”

  They clanged their glasses together and in unison said, “The future.”

  READ AN EXCERPT OF THE NEW G. MICHAEL HOPF BOOK AVAILABLE NOW

  NEMESIS: INCEPTION

  _________________

  February 22, 2015

  “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain

  Crescent, Oregon

  “Lexi…Lexi…WAKE UP!” the reoccurring voice from her dreams shouted.

  She sat up quickly, her heart racing as a cold sweat clung to her skin. She wiped the sweat with her shaking hands and blinked in an effort to clear her eyes, but it did no good in the pitch-black spa
ce. Fumbling, she found a glow stick, cracked it and shook vigorously. Soon a yellow glow lit the dark crevasses of the room. Her vision adjusted, but the room offered nothing for her champagne-colored eyes to feast upon. The walls were lined with boxes, and at her feet, a large metal shelf held cans and bottles. The smell of the room at first was off-putting, but she soon didn’t notice the mix of dust, cardboard and stale beer. The damp back storeroom of The Mohawk Bar and Grill wasn’t luxury accommodations, but having a relatively safe place to rest your head from the winter cold and dangers of the road came pretty close. At first she had refused the offer for shelter, only accepting it when she realized the place was full of provisions and an older single man who she sized up as beatable in a fight. After surviving for two months in the new world, her situational awareness was always on. She chalked it up as one of the primary reasons she was still alive.

  Lexi rubbed her eyes and grunted in frustration when the nightly dream that prevented her from getting the rest she needed popped in her mind. She had grown weary from her inability to sleep soundly. Before the collapse, sleeping had been one of her best friends. Not a weekend morning went by where she’d be awake by eleven, and her weekday mornings were a struggle to rise, each morning a repeat of the last as she hit the snooze button a dozen times. Now her sleep, if one could call it that, was punctuated with night terrors and restlessness.

  A knock at the door startled her. She reached under the pillow and grabbed her pistol, a Glock 17 9mm semiautomatic.

  “Lexi? Are you all right? I heard you scream,” the voice said from behind the door.

  She looked and saw a dark shadow blocking the dim light from underneath the door. She didn’t know John, much less completely trust him. She had only met him a week before.

  After her narrow escape from a small band of marauders, she had crashed the motorcycle she had stolen along the highway south of town. A small detachment of Marines had found her and offered assistance.

  Not having a place to call home, the Marines took her to the Mohawk. The Marines had created a relationship with John not long after arriving in town. Crescent was a small town, and with no other business operating besides the Mohawk, it provided a place for what remained of the community to gather. John had no family and nothing else, so keeping his only love, the Mohawk, open was a natural decision for him. He quickly ran out of perishable foods, but his supply of alcohol was abundant and part of his plan was to use it as currency. John was a large burly man, his black hair now streaked with silver. His wife had left him years ago and, with no children, the townspeople were family.

  During her stay, she had spent her time working out and training out back with her long sheath knives. Then she would find an excuse, any would do, to find adequate time to drink.

  John found himself watching her and was impressed with her skills. In fact, he was curious who he had staying in his back room. Today he made it a point to find out.

  “Lexi, you in there?” he asked again, this time trying the knob. The door was locked.

  Lexi looked at the door; her instincts born out of the chaos of the new world told her not to open it. Not truly knowing John and with her numerous negative experiences, she remained hesitant to trust anyone. Then her reasonable and pragmatic side won out. She didn’t have a place to go and he had supplies she could use on her hunt for Rahab.

  “I’m fine!” she called out. She walked to the door, unlocked it and quickly stepped back.

  John opened the door slowly and gently poked his head in. The light from his lantern cast a yellowish glow across the storeroom.

  “I heard screaming. I was worried,” John said, looking around the space.

  Lexi had taken a seat back on the floor again, her pistol tucked in her lap. “It’s all right.”

  “I’ll let you get back to sleep, then,” John said with a smile.

  As the door was closing, Lexi called out, “Hold on!”

  John craned his head back in. “Yeah.”

  “Ah, what time is it?”

  “Oh, um, it’s around five in the morning.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “You hungry? I can whip up something?”

  “Actually, I’m thirsty.”

  “There’s some water over in the corner, help yourself,” John answered. He now half stood in the room. He pointed to a stack of bottled water.

  “I was thinking of something a bit harder,” Lexi said, a smile now stretching across her face.

  A big drinker himself, John thought for a moment then opened the door fully. “It’s noon somewhere, right?”

  Lexi took the shot glass in her hand. The sides of it were slick from the over pour. One thing that hadn’t changed since the lights went out was her love of partying and drinking alcohol. Before, hard alcohol wasn’t her forte, but without ice and mixers, her favorites were no longer available. Determined to get the effect alcohol generously gave, she took to drinking whatever she could get her hands on. She looked at the bottle of Grey Goose and chuckled to herself. Before arriving in Crescent, she’d come upon a family. They had been welcoming even to the point of sharing their home-distilled spirits. The taste was repulsive, but she drank it anyway. She had never drunk paint remover before but only imagined that was what it tasted like.

  She held it up and said, “What are we toasting to now?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know, what haven’t we toasted to yet?” John asked, referring to the half-dozen shots they had already taken.

  “I got one!” she said as she held her glass higher. “Death to all scumbags! May they die a slow and painful death!”

  John raised his eyebrows in astonishment. He wasn’t prudish, but Lexi’s crude mouth and seemingly ruthless belief system did shock him.

  She put the glass to her lips and with one gulp drank the vodka. “Ahh, that was good!” she said with excitement as she slammed the glass onto the bar.

  John hesitated but soon followed and swallowed his shot of vodka.

  “Hit me up, bartender,” Lexi stated, sliding her glass towards John.

  Ignoring her, he finally asked her an intimate and personal question, “Lexi, what happened to you?”

  She leered at him and didn’t answer.

  “Why are you…so angry?”

  “Is that a serious question? Really? Look the fuck around. Who wouldn’t be angry?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then you’re an idiot!” she snapped at him.

  “Ha, I think you’re cut off,” John said, taking her glass.

  “Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry. That came off too…”

  “Too angry,” John quipped.

  John walked away with the glass and placed it along with the bottle of vodka at the back of the bar.

  “You’re right, I’m sorry. You’re not an idiot, I am. I just don’t want to talk about…this,” she said, motioning with her arms referencing the surroundings.

  “You’re going to sit at my bar, sleep under my roof, eat my food, drink my booze and not tell me who you are? You’ve been here a week and all I know is you drink a lot, work out and play with your knives.”

  Lexi thought about what John said for a moment and came to the conclusion he had a point. “You’re right and I’m a bitch. I, um, I just don’t like to talk about stuff, because doing so makes it seem real. Just sitting here like we’ve been doing for the past two or so hours talking about nothing but old movies, food, cocktails etcetera allows me to escape the fucked-up world we live in. It allows me to…forget.”

  John walked back and stood directly across from her.

  “I’ve seen a lot of bad shit out there. I’ve seen what people are capable of. It’s disgusting and revolting and I fucking hate it,” she said.

  “I can’t say I’ve seen what you’ve seen out there because I decided to stay right here. Never saw the need to venture out beyond the town limits.”

  “Don’t. Stay right here. It’s a hot mess out there.”

  John grabbed the bottle
and her glass and placed it in front of her.

  She reached for it, but he slid it back just a few inches, indicating he wasn’t quite ready to give it up.

  The faint sound of John’s rooster could be heard outside.

  Lexi craned her head and looked at the nearest window; there she saw the morning’s first light beaming through the thin metal blinds.

  She turned back to John and said, “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing really, but if you’re going to stay here, I’d like to know who you are, at least. I don’t need to know the gory details. I’m just an old man who likes to know who I’m talking to. I look at it this way, before I lived my life not concerned about other people. I was one of those people who never listened to anyone. In a conversation, I took the time the other used to talk to think about what I was going to say. I never truly listened,” John said, and then paused to think. “You know, that’s probably why my marriage failed. I never listened; all I did was talk and talk.”

  “Like now?” Lexi joked.

  John smiled and said, “Yes, like now. I’ll just finish with this. After everything happened, I decided to listen. I finally told myself that life is fragile and all this can end at anytime, so why not take the time to get to know people. Everyone has a story.”

  Lexi sat staring at John as a feeling of sadness came over her. Not one to show her emotions anymore, she decided to respond in a gentler way than her typical crass self. “Fine, sounds like a fair deal. You’re feeding and sheltering me, the least I could do is tell you who I am. The thing is, it’s not exciting. In fact, it’s downright boring, and the other shit that happened after was just plain horrid. But if telling you my boring story gets me another drink or two, I can do that,” she said. A smile broke her stoic face.