by Tom Abrahams
Blood trickled from his forehead to the edge of his lips. He licked them and tasted the warm, coppery fluid. This was bad. Very bad.
One of the cyclists revved his engine and pulled alongside the passenger side of the sky-blue coupe. The bike appeared miniature beneath his girth. The weapon in his hand appeared even larger. A grin spread across the beast’s face, and with one hand on the handlebars of his chopper, he leaned forward in the saddle seat and took aim.
Staring alternately at the endless road ahead and down the barrel of the gun, Graham instinctively did the only thing he knew to do—he slammed on the brakes. The biker zoomed past him, his shot grazing the front end of the Buick, snapping off the trophy emblem like a target at a shooting gallery.
A grinding crash overwhelmed his senses, and his body was hurled forward, over the steering wheel, through the glass windshield, off the hood of the sky-blue Buick, and onto the pavement not far from the emblem.
His head pounding, but his body functioning, Graham struggled to his feet. He was facing the car now. It was mangled, and what was left of it was perpendicular to the road. One of the large trucks had slapped into it.
There were a dozen men from the Horde standing in place, weapons in hand. Watching him intently, they didn’t move.
“What do you want?” he cried out, stumbling backward to give himself distance from the Horde. Their silence was more intimidating than anything they could have said. The darkness of their eyes, the lack of sympathy in their blank, emotionless expressions, and their stoic patience all served to unnerve Graham.
Was he losing his mind?
Rather than ask the question again, he turned to run. As fast as his feet could carry him, the inner soles of his boots pounding against his heels, he ran away from them.
His chest throbbed and the heat of the sun bore down on him. Blood, trickling from the wounds on his face, found its way into his eyes and, mixed with his sweat, stung. His vision blurred, he kept moving. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the Horde remaining motionless. None of them gave chase.
Graham kept running anyway. Ahead, and to the right, he thought he saw something. It was a house, or bigger than a house. Fingers of smoke drifted skyward from it. Somebody was there. Though it was a half mile, maybe more, Graham kept moving. Head pounding, heels thumping, chest heaving, he ran.
The Horde started to follow now. The building grew larger. A stiff wind caught his face. Graham’s legs began to feel heavy. His muscles thickened with exhaustion. His breathing was ragged now. The headache that had been a nuisance now blinded him.
His boots felt heavier now. Each step was harder to take. He pumped his fists and lifted his knees. The house was bigger. The Horde was smaller. Then it wasn’t.
Graham heard the thrumming rev of engines growing into a roar. He could feel the vibration in the soles of those heavy boots. They were coming for him. It was a tease, a faster predator giving slower prey a head start just for the sport of it.
Graham lost his footing and tripped. He tried to scramble to his feet, but was too exhausted. He rolled over and looked around, crawling away from the Horde, but half resigned to his fate.
His surroundings were familiar yet foreign. Something told him he’d been here before, but he knew that wasn’t true. This was unlike anywhere he’d ever visited. It wasn’t the Badlands. It might look like the Badlands, but there was something more otherworldly about where he stood. It was like he’d created it in a dream. If only he could wake himself from it.
The earthshaking rumble of the Horde descended upon him. It was then, when the engines quieted to an idle, Graham turned his back to the house and drifts of smoke.
He wiped his forehead one last time with the back of his arm and faced the Horde. One of them, a tall man with skeletal features and sunken black eyes, stepped forward. The chain looped at his hip chimed as he approached.
The man marched deliberately to within a few inches of him before he stopped. He leaned in and sniffed twice, his nostrils flaring wide. He grunted, running a gray tongue across yellow teeth that looked like they’d been filed into daggers. When he spoke, his voice was like gravel, like the man had spent a lifetime gargling his surroundings to grind his vocal cords into something rough and jagged.
“Do you know who we are?” The man’s skin stretched across the framework of his jaw and skull. “George Remus Graham?”
How do they know my name? Nobody knew his first name.
He hated his name. George was bad enough. But Remus? His mother had surely hated him. That had to be the only explanation. Yet this corpse of a man in front of him said it with authority. There was no doubt they knew him even if he didn’t know them. A shiver ran along his spine as he considered where it was he might be. If he was right, the answer as to who these men were would come soon enough.
“No,” he said. He fought every aching joint to stand before the stranger. “I don’t know who you are.”
The man turned his head to one side and then the other to crack his neck, resulting in a sickening sound. Graham was certain a bone would pop through the thin sheaths of skin that covered his frame.
The man raised his arms up and out to demonstrate his command of the Horde. “We are your reckoning.”
Reckoning?
The man lowered the wings of his arms and raised a finger to point at Graham. The finger extended like a mechanical claw, the knuckles straining at the joints. “We are here to take you home.”
Thirst unlike any Graham ever experienced filtered through his weakened body. More than anything, he wanted a drink of water. Motioning over his shoulder at the house a quarter mile away, he asked for clarification.
“Is that home?” he asked, hope lilting in his voice.
The thin man laughed heartily. He checked with his men and they too laughed. Graham swallowed against the dry knot in his throat. The ache in his head was close to debilitating now, and his knees were jittery, about to give out.
The laughter dried up and the thin man’s expression flattened again, his black eyes widening into mesmerizing onyx pools. “No, it’s not,” he said, the gravel raking across the words. “Not for you, George Remus Graham.”
The consonants hung in the air between them, the thin man appearing to relish the devilish way in which he spoke Graham’s name. He’d never hated the sound of his own name as much as he did right now. Afraid to ask the next question, Graham slid his bootheels off the asphalt and onto the rocky dirt on the highway’s shoulder.
“Who are you?” he asked, steadying himself.
“We are the Harbingers of the Real Death. Some like to call us the Horde.”
“Real death?”
“The death from which you cannot return.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
The thin man exhaled, impatience fuming from his nostrils. “It means there is no redemption for you, George Remus Graham. Now we are upon you, your lot is determined. There is no bargaining, no pleading, no begging, and no promise of doing better. What’s done is done. You belong to us now.”
“I belong to nobody,” he said, defiant.
There was no answer. Not verbally. The thin man took two steps forward, reached out a bony hand toward Graham, and touched the side of his face. The fingers were cold on Graham’s skin, and then they weren’t. The world around him dissolved from the arid high desert to emptiness. Graham was alone and in the dark. The Horde was gone.
“Hello?” he called out into the void. His call echoed softer with each return into and from the endless space beyond. “Is anyone there?”
Graham was weightless, yet there was pressure on his body. It was difficult to move despite the sensation of floating free of anything earthbound.
“Hello?” he called again. There was no response.
He reached out, the heft of his own mass making the task harder than he’d have thought. It felt like an eternity before he’d fully extended his arm and spread his fingers wide, grasping for something just beyond h
is reach. He swept his outstretched arm in a wide arc, reaching, grasping, hoping. Nothing.
He closed his hand into a fist, tightening it.
Then, somehow, Graham knew where the Horde had sent him. He knew his home.
It was eternal. It was isolated. It was unbearable.
It was hell, and he was already dead.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Thank you for reading The Bar at the End of the World, book one of The Watchers.
We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. We just wanted to take a moment to encourage you to review the book on Amazon and Goodreads. Every review helps further the author’s reach and, ultimately, helps them continue writing fantastic books for us all to enjoy.
If you liked this book, check out the rest of our catalogue at www.aethonbooks.com. To sign up to receive a FREE collection from some of our best authors as well as updates regarding all new releases, visit www.aethonbooks.com/sign-up.
JOIN THE STREET TEAM! Get advanced copies of all our books, plus other free stuff and help us put out hit after hit.
SEARCH ON FACEBOOK:
AETHON STREET TEAM
ALSO IN SERIES
You Just Read: The Bar at the End of the World
Up Next: The Bar at the Edge of the Sea
Then: The Bar in the Middle of Nowhere
Acknowledgments
Thanks to you, the readers, who choose to join me on these adventures. Your support, reviews, social media posts, and emails make the many hours alone at the keyboard so worthwhile.
I couldn’t do any of this without the constant and unwavering love of my wife Courtney and our children, Samantha and Luke. They are a collective muse and cheering section wrapped into one beautiful package.
The team at Aethon is incredible. They made this manuscript better when it was when it found their capable hands. Steve and Rhett are wonderful partners and advocates in this journey. Their confidence is my work is uplifting and motivating.
Steven Konkoly and Nicholas Sansbury Smith both read very early drafts of this and offered excellent narrative advice as did wordsmith Felicia Sullivan.
Thanks also to my parents Sanders and Jeannie, my siblings Penny and Steven, and my mother-in-law Linda for their viral marketing efforts.
Now back to the keyboard. More stories need telling…
About the Author
Tom Abrahams is an Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award winning television journalist and member of International Thriller Writers. He is also a Kindle Unlimited All-Star, an Audible 5 Star Favorite, and author of more than two dozen novels. He writes in several genres including dystopian, sci-fi techno-thriller, post-apocalyptic, and political thrillers. His stories combine the realistic with the fantastic and have sold copies all over the world. The dramatic rights for his "A Dark World" trilogy are optioned for television and film. He's married with two children and lives in Southeast Texas.
http://tomabrahamsbooks.com
