The Day After Never (Book 2): Purgatory Road

by Russell Blake

  “Ain’t got no gun, boy. Now just take it easy–” he began.

  “Ain’t your boy, bitch,” Kurt growled, and squeezed the trigger as he moved toward the table. The assault rifle bucked in his hands, and the dealer’s chest erupted with ruby blossoms as he pitched backward and slammed into the table, knocking the bottle over. He collapsed onto the wood slab and lay gasping for breath, staring at the roof in disbelief as his life pulsed from him in arterial spurts.

  “I’m here for my gear,” Kurt snarled at the mayor.

  “I expect you are,” the mayor said agreeably, and then the compact Glock 29 10mm pistol in his robe pocket blasted through the filthy fabric. The first round caught Kurt in the shoulder, the second slammed into his abdomen, and the third drilled through his skull above his left eye and painted the area behind him crimson.

  The room echoed from the shots, and when the reverberations had died down, the mayor stepped forward with the gun freed from his robe, weapon trained on the dead gunman. The two remaining guards burst through a back door that led to the sleeping quarters, guns at the ready, and froze when they saw the carnage. The dealer groaned and stiffened on the table, and the mayor shook his head.

  “Get them out of here. Throw the big one in the field out back as a warning, and bury Jed,” he ordered, indicating the dealer with a nod. “And mop up the blood. I don’t want a bunch of flies in here.”

  The men nodded wordlessly; bloodshed was nothing new. The mayor watched as they dragged the rogue Raider unceremoniously from the room by his feet, leaving a trail of coagulating sawdust. He stopped to collect the dead man’s AK-47 as the Raider’s body bounced over the threshold and into the street.

  There was no point in wasting a decent weapon.

  “If he’s got a horse, it’s mine now,” the mayor called. “And if you see that little rat buddy of his hanging around, gun him down.”

  The taller of the bodyguards paused at the door. “Why?”

  The mayor made his way to the bar and opened a bottle of rye. He took a swig, set it on the bar, and sighed before fixing the guard with a hard stare.

  “Principle.”

  Chapter 2

  Ruby and Lucas sat outside in their camp chairs, facing Sierra, who was watching Eve play near the horses. The ride back had consumed most of the morning, and the sun was high overhead as they discussed their next move. After considerable back and forth, Lucas had agreed to go in search of the USB and accompanying note, but as he thought through the logistics, the task seemed daunting. And there was still the matter of the kiss – the start of something or, at the very least, unfinished business he and Sierra would need to resolve.

  “Is there anything you can tell me about the vest that would help identify it?” Lucas asked. “Distinguishing markings?”

  “It was that tan camouflage color everyone seems to be wearing. I think…I think it had something on the front, like an emblem or something. I just don’t remember what it was,” Sierra said.

  “You recall what color the emblem was?” Ruby asked.

  “Black.”

  “How big?”

  Sierra held up her fingers with a small space between thumb and index. “I don’t know. Maybe an inch, inch and a half?”

  Ruby leaned back in her chair and called to Eve. “Eve, can you come here for a second, please?”

  The little girl ran through the tall grass, skipping occasionally, an expression of untroubled happiness on her face. When she arrived where the adults were seated, she grew serious. Ruby offered a smile and took her hand.

  “We were talking about the man who was in charge of your trip from Lubbock, Eve. Your aunt says you have an amazing memory. Do you remember something on his vest? A design or picture?”

  Eve nodded. “Yes. It was a bird.”

  Sierra snapped her fingers. “That’s right. An eagle or a hawk. Stylized, like a military logo.” She frowned. “I don’t know why I was drawing a blank. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been through a lot, and you’re still healing. Between the wounds, the infection, and the drugs, the mind can play tricks,” Ruby said.

  “And it wasn’t a plate carrier?” Lucas asked.

  Sierra frowned. “Not like yours, but it did have a front ceramic plate, so I guess it was. I’m sorry. I’m not really up on gear terminology.”

  Lucas had been asking for a more detailed description for some time, but it was obvious that Sierra’s memory had been affected by her ordeal. He decided to quit while he was ahead, the emblem hopefully adequate to identify the vest. “Where was the hidden pocket?”

  She tapped her sternum. “Inside, over the chest. It had Velcro that held it together so it looked like part of the inner seam.”

  Ruby smiled at Eve again. “You can go back and play if you want, Eve. Thank you, young lady.”

  “Welcome,” Eve said, her voice small.

  The child ran off. Sierra eyed Lucas. “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  Lucas watched Eve for a few moments and then stood. “I need to ride back to the gulch where Eve was hiding and see if there’s anything I missed. Neither of the shooters I took out were wearing camo, so if the vest is there, it would be with the rest of the bodies.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “Then I have to go to the canyon where Carl and his deputy ambushed the Raiders, and see how many they tagged, and whether any of them had the vest.” Lucas paused. “If none of them were wearing it, the options get worse from there.”

  “What do you mean?” Sierra asked.

  “The Raiders control a tiny town in Texas near the New Mexico border. Most traders avoid it because they know anything for sale wound up there from looting or robbery – or worse. But some don’t care. I’ll have to go and nose around, see if I can pick up the scent, assuming it was a Raider who grabbed the vest and not some opportunistic third party.”

  “What if it was?”

  It was Lucas’s turn to frown. “Then the technical term is we’re screwed.” He inclined his head toward Ruby. “But let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m more worried about you three while I’m gone. If the cartel’s still looking for you, they’ll eventually show up at the bunker again, so you have to keep out of sight.”

  “We can do that,” Ruby said.

  “If something happens and you have to bug out, there’s a place we can rendezvous that should be safe. About ten miles southwest of here. Blue Springs, over on the Black River.”

  Ruby nodded. “I know the spot. Been years, but gorgeous from what I remember.”

  “If you have to leave the cellar, wait for me there.”

  It took Lucas ten minutes to pack everything he owned in his saddlebags. Ruby hugged him when he was ready to go, as did Sierra, her body molding to his in a way he could get used to. Eve seemed unsure of how to bid him farewell, so he made it easier on her by kneeling down till he was at eye level and holding his arms out. She gave him a small, shy hug, and then he stood and reached into his saddlebag.

  “Here. You’re going to need some NV gear,” he said, and handed Ruby the night vision monocle Duke had gifted him. “I’ve got my rifle scope. Operating the monocle’s self-explanatory.”

  Ruby smiled. “I think I can figure it out.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  Lucas turned to Sierra. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash while I’m gone. The three of you need to stick together and cooperate if you’re going to survive.”

  Sierra bristled at his tone, but her expression softened at the obvious concern in his words. She nodded in silent agreement and reached out to touch his hand. A small chill ran up Lucas’s spine at a flash of the Eye of Providence tattoo on her arm. The swelling and redness of infection that had accompanied her chest wound had all but gone, from what he could see around the dressing. His gaze drifted to Eve and her matching tattoo, and he was filled with a cold foreboding that even the midday heat couldn’t completely banish.

  Tango, freshly fed an
d watered, followed the trail south toward the foothills where Lucas had discovered Sierra and Eve. Lucas knew he wouldn’t be able to make it by nightfall and had already decided on where he would spend the evening, his knowledge of the area substantial from his repeated forays tracking feral mustangs.

  As he rode, the big stallion’s steady hoofbeats thudding with the regularity of a metronome, he thought about the obvious challenges facing him. While nothing was impossible, in reality he was going to have to cover a lot of ground in a hostile wasteland in the hopes of finding a needle in a haystack, all on behalf of a woman about whom he knew precious little and was conflicted about trusting – as well as how he felt about her. She was definitely attractive, with high cheekbones and a challenging stubbornness to her frank countenance that would have had him in hot water under other circumstances.

  “Like you aren’t in the soup now,” he muttered.

  Eve had also captivated him with her composure and the odd, almost adult maturity in her reactions that was as unusual as anything he’d seen. Then again, you could write what he knew about children on a grain of rice. Even so, he sensed there was something special about her, immunity to the virus notwithstanding.

  High ribbons of clouds were streaking the cinnamon sky like colored smoke when he set up camp near a spit of sand that jutted into the bend of a creek. The lazy rush of shallow water over smooth stones burbled musically as he rigged his tripwires along the perimeter and tied a glittering chrome spoon to ten yards of monofilament fishing line. Before the sun had dropped behind the foothills, the hand line stiffened with a decent-sized trout, and Lucas finished his day with fresh fish roasted over a small fire while Tango refreshed himself from the brook.

  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.