When darkness fell, Lucas stamped out the remains of his fire and unfurled his bedroll onto the riparian slope, the glowing streak of a comet’s flare-out providing celestial pyrotechnics as he lay down beneath the night sky. The few trees along the stream’s course rustled in the breeze, and Lucas smiled to himself – it could have been worse, he reasoned. The reaction was barely formed when a wave of melancholy washed over him at the losses he’d suffered over the last week: his grandfather, Bear, his friends in Loving…
He shook off the morose thoughts. His philosophy of survival was to focus only on the present. The past was over and unchangeable, the future unknowable and not guaranteed to even arrive, which left him with the here and now.
And his pursuit of a pipe dream on behalf of an enigmatic beauty.
Lucas drifted to sleep with his hand on his M4, with visions of Sierra’s eyes for company and the whisper of the stream’s passage for his lullaby.
Several hours later he started awake, M4 clutched to his chest. Ten feet away, Tango stamped his front hooves again with a snort. The stallion had detected danger. Instantly awake, Lucas switched on the rifle’s Exelis night vision scope and peered through it at a glowing green nightscape, taking his time to scan the surroundings, searching for movement or any hint of whatever had spooked the horse.
There.
Bushes rustling maybe sixty yards away, on the far side of the stream. Not the wind, which had died down at some point while he slept.
Lucas flipped the assault rifle’s fire selector to three-round burst mode, and his index finger moved from the guard to the trigger. His pulse thudded in his ears and he willed himself calm, barely breathing, now fully awake, adrenaline flooding his system.
The bush stirred again, and a furry gray-brown form with glowing eyes stepped cautiously from behind it, its ears perked straight up as it sniffed the air. Lucas exhaled and switched the rifle’s fire selector back to safe. The coyote drawn by the remnants of Lucas’s feast was likely more fearful than dangerous.
“Relax, boy,” he murmured to Tango, rising and walking to the stallion. He patted the horse’s neck reassuringly, trying to calm him. “He’s just hungry. My bad for not throwing the bones into the water.”
Tango grew still, and Lucas took another look through the NV scope to confirm that there were no other nocturnal visitors. He watched as the coyote was joined by a second, smaller mate, and his heart ached for Bear. The poor creatures were trying to do the best they could, scavenging whatever they ran across, as was everyone these days.
Lucas lowered himself back onto the bedroll and passed the rest of the night in uneasy slumber, his dreams disturbed by the ghosts of the dead and an all-seeing eye from behind a wall of fire, disembodied and palpably evil, malevolence emanating from it like toxic steam as it glared triumphantly at a pile of corpses stacked like cordwood inside the Loving town hall.
Chapter 3
Houston, Texas
Magnus stalked from his headquarters to the massive parking lot that had once served tens of thousands of the faithful who’d worshipped in the church he’d commandeered. Framed on either side by gunmen and his inner circle of advisors, Magnus was scowling even more deeply than usual. His mahogany skin glistened in the torchlight as he neared a column of vehicles.
Four Humvees were parked near the entrance, flanked by heavily armed gunmen. Two troop carriers waited behind them, and a small tanker truck brought up the rear. Magnus inspected the trucks with satisfaction and grunted to Whitely, the head of his special projects group.
“The diesel’s still usable?” Magnus demanded.
“Yes,” Whitely said. “We’ve treated it with fuel stabilizer every year. We tested it recently, and it burns fine.”
Magnus studied the tanker. “This is the last of it?”
“We have ten thousand gallons in an above-ground storage tank, and that’s it. Most of it had degraded past the point of no return by the time we located any.” Whitely hesitated. “You remember how it was. People were killing each other over a gallon of gas.”
Magnus waved the comment away. “How long will it take them to reach Pecos? What is it, four hundred miles?”
“At least five hundred, but if the roads are clogged with debris and abandoned vehicles, they’ll be lucky if they make a few hundred miles per day. So a couple days, assuming no complications.”
Magnus nodded, accustomed to the long travel times – just part of the new world order where nothing worked.
“Still faster than horseback.”
“Yes,” Whitely agreed. They had discussed the options for supplying Garret with reinforcements and had concluded that it made sense to send some of their limited armor to Pecos to cut travel time by a fifth, as well as to provide a show of force. Operational vehicles were rare, most now junk due to scavengers and the elements. With no factories making parts or tires, every year there were fewer supplies to keep them running, assuming any fuel could be found.
The arrival of the trucks would underscore the Crew’s supremacy to the cartel and quell any notions of rebellion the Locos might have when they heard the new conditions Magnus’s envoy would bring.
Magnus looked over at a powerfully built man wearing a leather vest, whose head was shaved like his master’s, the better to display the tattoos that covered it with occult symbols. The man approached and stopped in front of Magnus.
“Cano, are you ready?” Magnus asked.
“Yes. We have everything we need.”
“Stay in contact via radio.”
“Of course.”
“You’re clear on what to do once you’ve taken control of the town?”
Cano grinned, with wolf-like effect. “Crystal.”
When Magnus hadn’t heard anything more from Garret, he’d instructed Cano to kill him upon arrival. There could only be one price for failure, and that was death. Garret had been a good soldier, but Magnus lived in a universe where mercy was a weakness, and Garret had lost the woman, which was unforgivable. An example had to be made for the rest of the men. It was decided.
Magnus nodded. “Good. Your troops are prepared?”
“Of course. We’ll crush any opposition. Not that anyone would be stupid enough to challenge us.”
“Then go. The sooner you’re there, the sooner we’ll be able to recover from this disaster.”
“I won’t let you down.”
“I hope not.” Magnus looked him up and down, and then shifted his eyes to the column. “Once you’re settled, send the vehicles back. We’ll keep the men stationed in Pecos, but they’ll use horses there.”
“I will.”
The engines started with a roar and the men climbed aboard, each gunman a hardened killer who’d proven his loyalty to the Crew countless times. Magnus watched as the heavy trucks rumbled away, the noise of motors jarring after the usual silence, and nodded again.
“You heading back to Dallas?” he asked Whitely.
“Yes. And then Lubbock. The work has to continue even in the girl’s absence.”
“I was under the impression you were at a standstill.”
“Not completely. There are still tests that were in the queue to be performed, and their results correlated with what we’ve already collected.”
“It’s unfortunate she’s the only immune one we’ve come across.”
“We only need one.”
Magnus led the way back into the church, his steps deliberate, his forehead wrinkled with concentration. His plan was so close to fruition he could taste it, his victory over circumstance almost complete, yet his moment of triumph had been stolen from him in the most unlikely way.
That could not stand.
He would prevail, would obliterate those who opposed him, as he had ever since taking over the region. That the woman and girl had escaped was a personal insult to him, and he would scorch the earth to find them and punish them, as well as those who had helped them flee.
There could be no other outcome. He would
commit whatever resources it took to achieve it.
The very future of the world – his world – hung in the balance. There was nowhere far enough for them to hide from Magnus. He was a force of nature, and they had unleashed his fury, which would sweep across the land like a plague until he found them.
And then they would pay.
They would all pay, and beg for death before he was finished.
Chapter 4
Lucas pushed Tango harder during the cooler morning hours, anxious to make the gulch before noon. The big stallion was game and held to a trot much of the time until the terrain became too uneven. The sun was a blazing disk in the azure sky by the time Lucas crested the rise and spotted the track that led down into the gully. He adjusted the flat brim of his hat to better shade his eyes while Tango picked his way down the loose gravel trail. He gripped the M4 tightly as he scanned the area.
When he reached the sight of the massacre, at first glance nothing appeared disturbed since he’d last been there. He dismounted and made his way to the two Raiders he’d shot, whose bones had been picked clean by animals. He glanced at the pile of skeletons and stopped midstride.
The Raiders’ guns, plate carriers, and magazines were gone. He remembered that he’d left them in his haste to spirit Eve to safety, but they were nowhere to be seen.
So someone had been there, though whether surviving Raiders or other scavengers, Lucas had no way of knowing.
His heart sank at the reminder of the long odds against success, but he continued on to where the dead lay, their bones bleached by the sun’s rays. A quick survey of the skeletons confirmed that nothing of value remained – even their boots had been removed. Little went to waste in the wilderness for long.
He returned to Tango and mounted up. It was obvious that there was nothing left for him, and he was glad to be rid of the place, the atmosphere tainted as it was by recent death. Lucas directed Tango back up the trail, and once at the crest, the horse sprinted for the distant canyon, as though he could also sense the bad juju in the ravine.
Lucas arrived at the canyon mouth forty minutes later, and it didn’t take long for him to piece together what had happened. The Raiders still lay where they’d fallen, only their guns and magazines missing, confirming to Lucas that at least some had survived. He walked the area slowly, the wind moaning as it funneled through the gap, and stopped when he came upon Carl’s remains. His ruined flak jacket told the story of his demise.
“Poor bastard,” Lucas whispered.
After combing over the other skeletons and finding nothing, he returned to the sheriff’s bones and piled small rocks over his remains until they were covered. He removed his hat and murmured a prayer for the dead, and when he replaced it, his steel-gray eyes were hard.
Lucas did a count and saw that the sheriff and his deputy had succeeded in killing most of the Raiders. By his reckoning only two had survived, unless he’d missed a body. He did a final walk through the killing field to ensure he hadn’t, and paused beside the outcropping from which Alan had fired, imagining the scene. For some reason Carl hadn’t made it to safety – why didn’t matter – but the deputy had managed to rid the earth of the lion’s share of the miscreants. Many had died out in the open, but several of the dead marauders had taken up defensive positions behind cover of their own. The desiccated bones of four horses told Lucas they hadn’t seen the ambush coming, and he wondered again at what had gone wrong for the sheriff that he’d been killed so far from Alan’s hiding place.
Back at the canyon entrance, he spotted a patch of tan fabric shifting in the breeze about a hundred yards away. He rode toward the movement and recognized Alan’s shirt and pants – or what remained of them. As they had with the other corpses, carrion birds and insects had cleaned the bones, but the condition of the dead man’s clothing made it clear that he hadn’t gone easily.
Lucas lowered himself from the saddle, crouched beside the remains to study the shredded garments, and shook his head, a frown twisting his features. The shattered ribcage, arm bones, and skull weren’t difficult to interpret – he’d seen the same before. The dead man’s boots were still lashed together, the Raiders too lazy to take them after loading themselves up with the guns and belongings of their fallen companions.
“They dragged you by your feet behind their horses, didn’t they?” he muttered, closing his eyes and imagining the atrocity.
Overhead, a hawk wheeled lazily, riding an updraft in search of prey, the cycle of life grinding relentlessly forward even as Lucas mourned the loss of the young man. Deep down he understood that there was nothing he could have done to save Alan, but his guts still twisted at the sight of the deputy’s broken body and the knowledge that his last moments on earth had been agonizing beyond imagination.
Lucas removed his collapsible camp shovel and dug a shallow grave while Tango stood by. When he’d placed the young man’s remains into the ditch and covered them with shale and dirt, Lucas wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm and spoke a few words, the prayer all too familiar of late. “May God have mercy on your soul,” he ended, and then glanced at his watch. Time was wasting, and every minute he spent there any trail was going cold.
Lucas considered the dead Raiders but couldn’t bring himself to expend the energy to bury them – the job would have taken most of the afternoon, and he didn’t have it in his heart to forgive the scum. He was comfortable with that failing; Lucas would leave forgiveness to a higher power, because all he could think was that he intended to reward the surviving Raiders for their evil with payment in kind.
Just as he’d done to the cartel.
Although it gave him no happiness to recall the events in Pecos, he had to admit some satisfaction at having evened the score. And much as he didn’t want to have to go into the belly of the beast in search of the surviving Raiders, he would do what he must and would show them the same mercy they’d extended to the deputy. While it might have been unenlightened, nowadays his approach was more Old Testament eye-for-an-eye than turning any cheeks.
The meek could inherit the earth; but in the meantime, he was going to bring the pain to those who reveled in their misdeeds.
“Come on, Tango. Got a long way to go, and nobody’s getting any younger.”
The horse eyed Lucas and waited for him to swing into the saddle. Once his boots found the stirrups, Lucas pulled the reins and pointed Tango east, toward Mentone, the shabby scattering of buildings at the devil’s crossroad where any survivors would have gone to regroup.
Chapter 5
Lucas smelled Mentone long before he saw the glow of campfires on its periphery. Night had fallen an hour earlier, and he’d made his way cautiously after dark, using the rifle’s NV scope to verify that he wasn’t riding into an ambush as he neared the hamlet. The wind had shifted and was coming out of the east, carrying with it the smoke from burning wood and the stink of raw human waste. He knew from his encounters with the Raiders that bathing wasn’t a big part of their culture, but even so the stench was overpowering as he reached the town limits.
He didn’t have to search far to find Mentone’s social center – a pair of torches framing the door of a long, low building and faint electric light seeping from its windows announced the spot even before shouts and ragged curses drifted to him from inside. A faded hand-painted sign hung crookedly over the entryway, featuring a crude depiction of a bottle and a woman’s exaggerated curves, beneath which it proclaimed in red, “The Mayor’s.”
Lucas had heard of the place from Duke, but had successfully avoided traveling to Mentone until then. It had a reputation as a dung hole, even by postapocalyptic standards, which was saying a lot: barely six blocks of dirt roads and squalid dwellings, the Raiders having seized the town and turned it into their vision of hell soon after the flu had cleared the population for them.
Only the most unscrupulous traders set foot within its boundaries, although it was understood that those who came to dicker were safe from predati
on while there. A necessary safeguard, but one Lucas was skeptical of, and one he wasn’t planning to put to the test if he could help it.
Seven horses were tied to a hitching post by a watering trough, and Lucas dismounted and nodded to an older Raider who was watching the animals from the shadows. His Mohawk was ratty and graying, a pale stump extruded from cutoff trousers above where his left knee would have been, and a sawed-off shotgun lay in his lap.
“Some rounds in it for you if you keep an eye out,” Lucas said.
“Treat him like he’s my own flesh and blood,” the guard assured him.
“What’s the story inside?”
“Leave your weapons in your saddlebags and keep your nose clean, things should be fine.”
“They got food?”
“Guess some might call it that. Best to stick to the firewater, if you ask me.”
“Fair enough.”
Lucas had dined on some of his jerky on the ride and was used to long hours with an empty stomach, so the dearth of edibles didn’t faze him. He had no intention of eating anything served in the saloon – rather, he’d wanted to see how honest the old man was.
He stowed his weapons and approached the doors. Inside, a guard with a fireplug physique gave him a cursory frisking as Lucas breathed through his mouth, the odor in the room nauseating. When the bouncer nodded him past, Lucas made for the bar and bought a bottle of rum, there being no beer or anything less than eighty proof available.
Lucas took a small pull on the liquid, almost gagged at the taste, and then set it down on the plank and glanced at the crowd in the gloom. Two overhead fluorescent lamps that had seen better days provided scant illumination, which was probably just as well – the six women there more resembled losing kickboxers than female companionship, and the men ran the gamut from filthy and rangy to worse than he’d seen in anyone still alive.
The Day After Never Bundle (First 4 novels) Page 25
