The Razor's Edge: A Postapocalytic Novel (The New World Book 6)

by G. Michael Hopf

  A tap at the door tore him away from the trance he was in. “Hector, you okay?” Annaliese asked.

  “Hector? Pablo? Who are you?” he whispered under his breath as he still glared at his reflection. He had been Hector for months now and he liked him, it seemed everyone liked him, but Hector lacked something. Pablo was the opposite, he wasn’t liked; in fact, he was hated, but all feared him and all respected him. Which will it be? he thought.

  Another tap.

  “Coming,” he said.

  He again looked in the mirror but turned his eyes to the corner of the room and jumped. “What are you doing here?”

  Another tap. “Are you coming?” Annaliese asked.

  “How are you here?” Pablo asked out loud to the corner of the room. “I buried you.”

  Another tap, louder.

  “Go away,” Pablo said. He turned and opened the door to see Annaliese standing there.

  “You’re worrying me,” she said.

  “Cut,” he said holding up his bandaged hand.

  She pushed the door open wider and looked inside. “I swear I heard you talking to someone.”

  “Myself,” Pablo replied.

  “C’mon, everyone is waiting,” she said.

  “Anna,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  A strong temptation hit him. He wanted to ask her to call him Pablo, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out.

  “Go ahead,” Annaliese said and placed her hand on his arm.

  Her gentle touch swept away the desire. Does it really matter? he thought. She liked the name Hector, and it was really the name she knew him by. She didn’t know Pablo, nor did he want her to see him. In many ways he wanted to keep that side of him secret from her for fear she’d reject him.

  “C’mon, let’s go celebrate,” she insisted and pushed him along.

  He put his thoughts away for the moment and walked back to the dining room.

  DECEMBER 26, 2015

  “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.” – William James

  West of Joseph, Oregon, Republic of Cascadia

  Lexi bent over and picked up several more sticks of kindling and placed them on top of the small stack she cradled in her right arm.

  A gray squirrel bolted from a grove of laurel and dashed in front of Lexi. Right on its heels, Beau, her blue-haired pit bull terrier, chased after it.

  Lexi laughed.

  The squirrel jumped on a pine tree and scurried up.

  Beau reached the tree. He placed his front legs on the trunk and barked at the squirrel, which had stopped at a large branch and chirped back.

  The pursuit was over, but Beau wasn’t about to let the squirrel go without letting him know how he felt as he barked several more times.

  Lexi walked over, laughing. “Beau, my boy, today was not your day, but don’t you worry, you’ll get him or one of his cousins soon.” She petted his head and walked away.

  Beau looked back at Lexi then turned again to the squirrel, barked one last time and gave up. He jumped down and ran up to Lexi.

  “Gave up?” Lexi asked looking down at him.

  She had grown to love Beau and was happy she’d taken him months ago. He had proven to be a capable companion and an effective hunter, minus his most recent failure. He was another mouth to feed, but it was worth it.

  They walked side by side to the campsite she had called home for five weeks. Often she contemplated finding an abandoned house, but each time she came close to acting on that thought she quickly talked herself out of it. One thing was certain; in order to avoid people, which she liked to do, she had to stay off the beaten path and give a wide berth to towns and even individual homes.

  She tossed the kindling down next to the fire, removed her rifle, which had been slung across her back, and plopped down on a log. Her head itched, so she removed the tight black beanie and pulled the hair tie that held her thick ponytail. Her dark brown hair fell down around her neck and tanned face. She pulled off her gloves and began to scratch feverishly. When she was done, her hair went in a thousand different directions. Her hair had grown out from the days of Rahab and she was happy for it; gone also was any trace of blonde. She thought about cutting it short, but there was something she liked about long hair. In some ways it made her feel a connection to some sense of femininity.

  Beau walked around in circles before lying down close to the fire, his standard operating procedure.

  Lexi picked up a couple pieces of kindling and placed them on the fire and with another piece stoked it until the flames grew.

  Hunger pangs began to gnaw at her stomach. She reached into a large backpack and pulled out a bag of jerky.

  The crinkling sound of the plastic bag piqued Beau’s interest; he lifted his head and looked at her with longing eyes.

  Lexi pulled a long piece of jerky from the bag and was about to eat it but stopped short when Beau gave a pathetic whimper.

  “You want this?” she asked.

  His ears peaked, and he replied with another whimper.

  Again she teased by asking, “You want this?”

  This time he yelped.

  Lexi cut her eyes and said, “I don’t know if you deserve the first piece today after that miserable failure with the squirrel.”

  Beau cocked his head and whined.

  She loved his piercing brown eyes. If asked, she would swear they were almost human in the way they appeared, as if he was an old soul, a kindred spirit living in the body of a dog.

  “Fine,” she said, tossing him the jerky. “And it’s only because I’m a sucker for that pouty face of yours.”

  Beau snatched the jerky in the air and began to chew heartily.

  Lexi reached in the bag for another when a faint scream in the distance gave her pause. She sat upright and slightly turned her head towards the direction she thought she heard it come from.

  A second scream and this time louder.

  Lexi avoided people, but she made it her life’s mission to help those in need. She dropped the bag of jerky and grabbed her rifle, a Sig Model 716 equipped with a Trijicon ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight). She had found the rifle months ago while scavenging through abandoned vehicles on Interstate 45 in Idaho. Since then the rifle had proven to be the perfect weapon. The .308 caliber was the right size, but it was the ACOG that enabled her to accurately reach out and touch someone.

  Beau hopped up and pivoted his ears towards the direction of the screams.

  Not wasting time, she sprinted up a small wooded rise and stopped near the top.

  Beau came up behind her and froze.

  Lexi low crawled the remaining distance and took cover behind a large pine tree that sat on the tree line.

  More screams echoed from the valley below.

  Lexi scanned the expansive rolling valley but saw no one. The golden grasses swayed in the crisp wind but not a soul was in sight.

  “Help!” a woman screamed.

  Lexi pivoted to her right and looked.

  A woman emerged over a small hill. She was running full speed; her T-shirt was smeared with what appeared to be blood.

  Two men then popped over the hill.

  The woman was clearly fleeing, and Lexi was in the right place at the right time. She dropped the binoculars, shouldered her rifle, laid her cheek on the stock, took a deep breath, and looked through her scope.

  A gunshot rang out, but it wasn’t Lexi.

  In the time it took Lexi to bring her weapon to bear, one of the men had shot the girl.

  Lexi looked to find the girl but she was gone, most likely lying wounded or, worse, dead in the tall grasses.

  The men were still there though, and Lexi meant to change that. She placed her sight on one of them, flipped the safety off and began to apply pressure to the trigger when a man hollered.

  “Stephanie!”

  Lexi looked and saw another man appear over the hill. He was running at a breakneck speed towards the
others. He didn’t appear to have any weapons, but he was determined to save the woman.

  The man who had shot the girl turned and raised his pistol.

  Seeing this, Lexi quickly squeezed off a round. The .308 exploded from the heavy barrel and in an instant slammed into the buttocks of the man holding the pistol. The round easily passed through and exited at the top of his thigh.

  The man grunted in pain, dropped the pistol and fell to his knees.

  “Stephanie!” the new man again cried.

  Lexi grumbled at the bad shot and adjusted her aim. She again began to apply pressure but stopped when the new man reached his first target.

  The wounded man raised his hand defensively, but it wasn’t enough to stop the other’s onslaught. He began to rain down one punch after another.

  When he had stopped, Lexi counted that he had landed twenty-four punches. Distracted by watching the spectacle, Lexi didn’t see the second man appear and jump the guy. The two scuffled and rolled on the ground. The tall grasses obscured Lexi’s view.

  The second man rose, his back towards Lexi.

  Lexi saw an opportunity to help and again began squeezing the trigger.

  The second man turned and brought into clear view for Lexi the fatal wound he bore. His arms were wrapped around his bloodied lower abdomen in an attempt to hold in his guts.

  The other man stood up, his clothes, face and arms covered in blood. In his right hand he held a long knife. He took two steps to clear the distance between him and the other man, placed the blade against his throat and slid it across.

  The second man reached for his throat, which only complicated his situation as some of his lower intestines burst out of his gut. With his throat slit, he was seconds from death.

  The third man shoved the other out of his way and cried out, “Stephanie!”

  A bloody arm slowly grew from the grasses twenty feet in front of him.

  Lexi was in awe at what she had just witnessed. She lowered the rifle and picked up her binoculars to get a closer look.

  Seeing the woman’s arm, the third man ran towards her but fell down before getting there.

  Lexi wondered if he had tripped or was wounded.

  He got back to his feet, took several steps and paused to bend over.

  It looked like he was wounded.

  The woman’s arm dropped out of sight.

  Beau whimpered.

  “How do I know they’re not going to hurt me?” Lexi asked, answering Beau’s whimper as if it were a question.

  The man continued towards the woman but stopped once again. This time he fell to his knees.

  Beau whimpered again.

  Lexi looked at Beau and said, “You go.”

  Beau cocked his head.

  “Fine, I’ll go, I’ll go,” she relented. She stood, slung her rifle and hurried down the hill. When she found the woman, she could tell she was dead. Her eyes already had a grayish haze as they stared out into nothing.

  Out of the rustling grass the man appeared; he was crawling now. “Stephanie,” he weakly moaned.

  Lexi stood and took a step back.

  He never lifted his head to look at Lexi; he crawled on top of Stephanie and frantically ran his hands over her. “Stephanie, no, please no. Wake up, please, wake up.”

  The tragic scene made Lexi feel uncomfortable.

  The man began to weep when he realized Stephanie was dead.

  All Lexi wanted to do now was leave. She interfered when needed but her mission was complete. The bad guys were dead, so therefore it was time to go. She took several more steps backwards.

  The man lifted his head and said, “Kill me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Please, I don’t want to live anymore.”

  “No,” Lexi declared.

  The man remembered he had the knife. He pulled it from his pocket and put it to his wrist.

  Mesmerized, Lexi just stood and watched. A thought came to her to stop him but she long ago stopped anyone from harming themselves. It was their life; if they wanted to end it, so be it.

  Seconds went by, but the man just held the knife in his shaking hand over his wrist. Agitated with his lack of courage, he again begged for Lexi to kill him. “Please, just kill me.”

  “No, I don’t kill innocent people.”

  “Ha, if you only knew, I’m not so innocent.” The man laughed.

  “That may be true, but killing you doesn’t fit into my code.”

  The man looked back at Lexi and asked, “You have a code? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I’m going to leave now,” Lexi said and turned around.

  “It’ll be a mercy killing. I’m wounded pretty bad, so I’m dying anyway. You’d just be helping me get it over with.”

  “I told you I don’t do that,” she replied as she kept walking.

  “If you’re not going to help with that, can you spare a drink, whiskey, something?”

  Lexi stopped, looked back at him and answered, “I don’t drink either, sorry.”

  “I’ve seen it all now.” The man laughed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, nothing, but I have one more request.”

  “I’m done, take care,” Lexi said and resumed her march back to her camp. With all the shooting and screaming, Lexi feared others would soon be coming, and the last thing she needed was to be out in the open.

  “If you have a shovel, I’d like to bury her. It’s the right thing to do,” the man said.

  Lexi ignored his last request and kept walking.

  “Not even a shovel?” the man hollered. “You’re a real good Samaritan.”

  The man mocked Lexi as she kept walking, but she disregarded his comments until she no longer heard them.

  When she arrived back at the campsite, she knew she couldn’t stay. She was too close to that scene to call this home any longer. So with haste she began to break camp. As she loaded her pack, she came upon an entrenching tool and paused. What would it hurt for him to bury the woman? she thought. But no sooner a competing thought challenged that. Does it matter? He’s probably dead already. She put the e-tool aside and continued to load, but the original thought kept plaguing her. Annoyed that she couldn’t clear her thoughts, she made herself a deal: if he was still alive, then she’d help him; if she found him dead, she’d let the dead lie where they fell.

  She grabbed the e-tool and her rifle and rushed off.

  Stopping at the tree line, she scanned the area first just to be safe. With it all clear she made her way to him.

  He was exactly where she had left him, but his back was towards her.

  Cautiously she approached.

  “Please tell me you changed your mind,” the man said.

  Lexi stepped around until she faced him. “Here,” she said, handing him the e-tool.

  He reached up and took it. “Thanks.”

  Seeing his poor condition, she said, “I can help.”

  “Now you’re being nice?” he joked.

  His entire shirt was soaked with blood and his face was ashen.

  “You’re going to die,” Lexi flatly said.

  “Thanks for the four-one-one,” he said as he unfolded the e-tool. He got to his knees and with a big swing plunged the shovel head into the hard ground, barely making an impact. He swung two more times without more effect. “The ground is frozen.”

  “It’s not technically frozen, but yes, digging a hole will be difficult,” Lexi said.

  “You’re just full of tips, aren’t you?” he said, coughing.

  “There’s plenty of large rocks; let’s gather them and bury her that way,” Lexi suggested.

  The man tossed the e-tool aside and said, “Good idea.” He got to his feet and went to take a step but vertigo overcame him. He looked at Lexi and mumbled, “I…um.” He fell to the ground hard.

  Lexi checked his pulse and found he was alive. She looked around then checked her watch to see it was almost noon. She thought about leaving him,
but couldn’t. “Look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Lexi,” she cursed.

  Sandy, Utah

  Pablo peeked inside the tent where the prisoners were being held to find they were gone. The only thing that remained was their blood, remnants to prove they even existed. On the table his tools of torture still sat as he'd left them.

  A soldier walked by unaware of who he was.

  “Where’s General Luis?” Pablo asked.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “He took a small detachment and left this morning,” the soldier answered.

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Who are you?” the soldier asked.

  Pablo got in the soldier’s face and replied, “I’m your emperor.”

  The expression on the man’s face went from disdain to fear. He dropped to one knee and said, “Forgive me, Emperor.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Colonel Reyes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He should be in the command tent, sir.”

  Pablo pushed past the soldier and headed for the command tent. He hated being left in the dark. Why hadn’t Luis told him he was going out?

  Just as Pablo reached the command tent, Reyes was exiting.

  “Colonel Reyes,” Pablo said, now recognizing him. He might have had twenty words with this officer before.

  “My emperor,” Reyes said, shocked to see Pablo.

  “Where is General Luis?”

  “Sir, he took a detachment out this morning.”

  “I know that,” Pablo said angrily. “Where?”

  “He had new intel from the interrogations and needed to act immediately.”

  “Why didn’t he inform me?”

  “I was under the impression he had, sir.”

  “No one called,” Pablo barked in his raspy voice.

  “Sir, I distinctly remember he tried to call you twice,” Reyes said.

  Pablo struck Reyes with an open palm. “No one called.”

  Dismayed, Reyes simply replied, “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he say where?”

  “A Mormon church south of here in the town of Drake,” Reyes answered.

  “Why?” Pablo asked grabbing Reyes.

  “Sir, those Americans told us there was a large cache of food and other supplies.”