The Preston Six Collection: (Book 1, 2 and 3)

by Ryan, Matt

  “Yeah,” Lucas said.

  “Oh God, can you get me something to drink? I’m dying in here.”

  “Me too!” a man in another room cried out in a raspy voice.

  “I can see you,” another woman said from behind a nearby door. “Just a drink.” She sounded clear.

  Lucas looked to Julie and shrugged. He didn’t know what to do, even if he had water, how could he get through the door. Hank failed at kicking the last one down.

  Julie swore quietly. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before, I bet I can use my Pana to activate the electric locks on these hotel doors.” She walked next to the door with the woman asking for water. She held her Panavice next to the handle with a card swipe and a series of lights on top. How long had it been since they had a guest with a card? All the locks had a key override which is what they must have been using.

  Lucas shook his head. “And to think, I said you were the smartest woman alive.”

  “You know that can’t be true.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, I’m with you.”

  The door lights lit green and he heard the lock click. Lucas held his bow high and waited for the door to open. “Hank.” He nodded his head to the door.

  Hank pushed the door open and the smell of decay wafting from the room was so bad, Lucas could barely keep his eyes open. A frail woman in what looked like a severely soiled white sheet draped over her tiny body, emerged from behind the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, staring at Prudence. “I’m not thirsty, please don’t take me. I’m sorry.” She cried and covered her face with a skeleton of a hand.

  Lucas lowered his bow and gave Julie a confused look. “Miss, were not here to hurt you, or give you water, we don’t have any. How long have you been locked in here?”

  “I came here with my husband, he’s a few rooms down, they drugged us with water and when I woke up, I was in this room. It’s been weeks since then, I think.” The frail woman, maybe thirty, put her hands to her mouth and sobbed.

  “Let’s get you people the heck out of here,” Lucas said.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she repeated.

  “This must be their holding floor,” Hank said. “I bet we would have been filling some of these rooms.”

  They spent the next few minutes opening the doors to each of the rooms. They didn’t look into the rooms too long as the horrible conditions inside were something they wanted to forget. With the doors open, the hall filled with a dozen people. Some were so weak, they struggled to stand. Some hugged each other, reuniting. Lucas thought there were many stories to hear from the survivors, but he didn’t have the time. They needed to get out of there before the Mayor came looking.

  He turned to Julie who had tears in her eyes and couldn’t look at the raw humanity filling the hall. “I saw a broken window in room two-thirty-two”

  Julie nodded her head.

  Some of the people were on their hands and knees, touching his shoes. “Please, stand up. You don’t need to do that.”

  Entering the room with the broken window, Lucas took in the fresh hot air from outside. The ground was only a few feet below, and the parking lot was an easy hundred feet away. What a terrible view.

  When he turned around to talk to Julie and Hank, he realized everyone had followed. The weary faces of the survivors begged him to save them. He lowered his head and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. The smoke still burned. “We can’t take you with us, but out this window is freedom, if you can find it.”

  “They were going to eat us,” a man in blue jeans said.

  “I’m so sorry.” Julie still had tears on her face. “We just narrowly escaped that same fate as well.”

  Out the window a bird flew by, maybe a crow. Lucas hated the lives these poor people led. They came here looking to get away from the dead who wanted to eat them, only to find brethren who wanted to eat them as well.

  Lucas jumped from the window and landed on the concrete. He turned and helped Julie down and then waited for Hank. The survivors climbed down, each looked to the sky and thanked them as they went their separate ways. Julie grabbed his hand and pulled him close. He felt her wet tears against his shirt.

  “Come on,” Lucas said. He pulled Julie to the parking garage, a three story structure with rows and rows of cars and trucks, all of which were filthy, with layers of dirt. All but one. A beige Hummer stood out from the dull pack with its shining paint.

  “No way, there it is,” Hank said.

  They ran to it and opened the doors. The keys were still in it. Lucas pumped his fist on top of the steering wheel in excitement. He turned the key and the engine started.

  “Please, get us out of here,” Julie begged, strapping her seatbelt on in the front seat.

  Lucas backed the hummer out of its parking spot. He shifted into drive and looked forward. A man stood with a rifle pointed at them fifty feet ahead.

  “Get down,” Lucas yelled. He pushed on the gas pedal and drove at the armed man. The man fired into their windshield. Glass flew around the inside of the hummer, but Lucas pushed on the gas pedal, the only way out of the garage was through the man. Three more shots were fired before he jumped out of the way, falling to the ground.

  “Julie, you okay?” Lucas asked as he sat upright. His heart pounded as he kept glancing at Julie, inspecting her for injuries.

  She brushed a few bits of glass from her shirt and nodded.

  “I’m okay,” Hank replied.

  The Hummer skidded on the concrete as they exited the garage. Lucas drove past a couple survivors and they yelled as he drove by. The road led to the plywood wall surrounding the hotel. He hoped it was as flimsy as the one out front. He braced himself as the hummer plowed into the wall. The windshield cracked more and the mirrors ripped off. Julie crouched low in the front seat and held her arms over her head but they made it through with ease.

  The mammoth vehicle bounced over the crumbled wall and he heard gun fire as they left. Goodbye Sanctuary. He took the path they came in on with Poly driving. It was one of the few cleared roads available.

  Julie turned around, looking out the back window. “You think those people are going to be okay?”

  Lucas didn’t think in a million years any of them would be okay, but he glanced at her and she still looked back with optimism in her eyes. “They survived this long in this world, they should be fine.”

  “How much gas do we have?” Hank asked.

  “Crap, it’s low,” he said. “There should be plenty of big rigs we can siphon from on the road.” Lucas stared ahead and at the piles of cars pushed to the side of Tulip Street. He cringed when he hit a parked car and adjusted his hands on the steering wheel.

  “Poly was a better driver,” Hank observed.

  “Ha! Remember her jumping this thing over the mini-dunes in that field? I’ve never seen someone so excited.” Lucas laughed and took a deep breath, feeling some of the tension leaving his body. Everything happened so fast back there, it almost didn’t feel real. Some of the faces flashed through his mind, but the little girl in the garden stuck out the most. He knew now it’d been hunger he saw in her eyes. God he hated Ryjack.

  Julie smiled at him and he managed to avoid the rest of the cars as he made his way through the dead city of New Vegas. The cluttered freeway out of the city made for slow time. He off-roaded when he had to, but took his time to navigate the ditches, boulders, and cars. With the city far behind them, the road started to clear out. He kept a light foot on the gas pedal and when the tires hit the asphalt again, he took a while to get up to thirty miles per hour.

  A gas light lit on the dashboard. “There goes the gas alarm.”

  “We need to find a rig with fuel in it,” Julie said, as Hank pulled himself up to look out the front window.

  Soon, Hank pointed to the right. “Some of those regular trucks are diesel.”

  Lucas pulled up next to the freeway car pile and drove slow. “Let me know when you
see one.”

  After a few minutes of driving Hank pointed at a large red truck. “That one’s got a diesel emblem on it.”

  Stopping, Lucas got out of the car. “Stay in here,” he said to Julie.

  Hank followed, pulling the gas can off the back of the Hummer as they walked to the red truck in the middle of the car pile. The heat blazed down on them and Lucas wanted to get back in the AC as quickly as possible. Hank shoved a clear tube into the trucks gas tank and sucked on the end. Lucas watched the dark liquid run through the tube. Hank pushed it into the gas can and the liquid splashed inside the can.

  “That was one jacked up place back there,” Hank said.

  “You’re telling me.”

  “I don’t know if I can ever stay in a hotel again.”

  “Dude, I hear ya,” Lucas said. He turned, thinking he heard a sound of metal scraping. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  A banging sound, followed by a scrape of metal, alerted Lucas. He pulled out his bow. Scanning the windows and the spaces between the cars, he looked for movement.

  “That thing full?” Lucas asked.

  “Almost—”

  The horn on the Hummer blared. Lucas grabbed the hose, Hank picked up the gas can, and they sprinted toward Julie. The horn blasted again. Lucas ran past the last car and saw several grinners around the hummer with Julie in the driver’s seat. He steadied his feet and pulled out an arrow, firing into the closest grinner, then four more to kill the rest around the car. Running to the car, Hank followed closely behind.

  Lucas’s hand fumbled at the locked door handle. He yanked at the handle until Julie pulled up the lock. He flung the door open and Julie fell out into his arms. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just freaked me out a bit.” She glanced down at the dead grinners on the ground and then buried her face into his chest.

  “Guys,” Hank said as he fueled the tank. “They’re coming.” He pointed his hand to the freeway.

  Lucas turned and saw the group of grinners moving toward them. “Julie, get in.” He climbed into the car and sat in the driver’s seat. “Come on, Hank.”

  “Just a second.” Hank lifted the gas can high, trying to drain out the last of the gas.

  “We got to go, man.”

  “Almost there.”

  The first grinner hit the side of the car and Julie pulled at Lucas’s arm. “Get in, Hank!” she screamed.

  The grinner walked around the car. Hank kicked it in the chest and pulled the gas can from the tank and jumped into the car. He shook the car when he slammed the door closed. “Let’s go.”

  Lucas started the hummer and ran over three grinners on his way out. He steered to the dirt road parallel to the freeway and kept a decent speed. The gas gage moved a bit past empty.

  “We’re going to have to do that all the way to LA.” Lucas looked in his rearview, he couldn’t see the grinners anymore. The Hummer slowed down as the motor sputtered. He pumped the gas pedal. “No, no.” He hit the steering wheel.

  “What’s wrong?” Julie asked.

  “I don’t know, it’s breaking down.”

  “I think gas can go bad. It’s probably too old.”

  Lucas pushed on the gas pedal and the car jerked forward, then clunked and slowed down. He pumped the pedal, but the engine died. At least they were far enough from the grinners.

  The heat crept into the cab. Lucas took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. They were probably thirty miles outside Vegas and hundreds of miles until LA. He looked far into the shimmering horizon. A large building shook in the haze, maybe ten miles out, too far to walk in the heat.

  “What are we going to do?” Julie asked.

  “How many miles until LA?”

  Julie looked at her Panavice. “Over two hundred.” She plopped the Panavice on her lap and looked at the ceiling.

  “We can’t walk, we have to get a ride of some sort. Maybe we can find a running car out there?” Lucas pointed to the freeway.

  “Those cars have been sitting there for twenty years, none of them are going to work,” Julie said.

  She was right, the only thing that kept the Hummer going was Ferrell and his personal fuel supply. Frustrated, Lucas stared at all the inoperable cars. “Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink,” he said.

  Julie raised an eyebrow at his comment, but he focused on the cars.

  Then, he saw it. “A Prius. Too bad we couldn’t have gotten one of those things going.”

  “You’re a genius!” Julie bolted upright in her seat. “My Panavice can power up things electrical. If we can find an all-electric car . . . it might work.”

  They walked the path of cars and looked for the elusive all-electric vehicle. Many hybrids sprung up, but those needed gas as well.

  “Look,” Hank said. “A Tesla.”

  Lucas thought it looked like a luxury sports car. “This is all-electric?”

  “Yep,” Hank said.

  Julie stood next to it with her Panavice in hand. “It is.”

  Lucas slid his hand over the dusty door, only to be met with a face of a kid grinner slapping against the window. He stumbled back and fell against the truck behind them. “I hate kid grinners.” He stood upright. “Hank, get the door.”

  Hank stood behind the door and pulled it open. The kid funneled out of the car and fell to the ground courtesy of an arrow through the head. Lucas gritted his teeth.

  “You’re free now, buddy.” He pulled the arrow out of the gray flesh.

  The insides of the car reeked of death. Lucas went to roll down the windows, but they didn’t work, so he walked around and opened both doors to air it out. “You think you can get this thing going?” he asked Julie.

  “I think so, but it might be slow going,” she replied. “Whoa, the battery on this thing is huge. It might take a bit for the initial charge.”

  “Fine, I’m going to stay outside and keep a look out.” Any excuse to exit the car and its smell.

  “Move some of those cars so we can get out of here,” Julie said and pointed to the cars blocking its way out.

  Lucas plotted a path for the car to take and thought he could move one truck and make room for their escape from the rows of cars. “Hank, can you give me a hand?” The big guy stepped out from the car. “Let’s move this truck.” Lucas shifted the truck into neutral and they pushed it into the dirt shoulder, giving enough space for the Tesla.

  After a half hour of waiting and watching, Julie called his name. Lucas ran to the car and looked inside to see her smiling face. Hank shuffled into the back seat, jostling the small car.

  “Let’s see if this thing works,” she said.

  Lucas grinned and jumped behind the steering wheel. He turned the key and the dash lit up. He had never driven an electric car and he wondered if it was even running. Pushing the gas pedal, he got his answer as they lurched forward. He turned the wheel sharp to get in between the space he and Hank created.

  Lucas beamed at Julie as he pulled the car off the shoulder and onto the adjacent dirt road. “You’re a genius.”

  Julie laughed. “I know, right?”

  He could have kissed her right then, if it didn’t make it so awkward with Hank looking on. Instead, he reached over and clasped her hand and with the look she gave him, it was clear she understood how he felt.

  The car crept along the dirt road. Lucas looked ahead to the large buildings in the distance. The last-chance casinos sat ahead. He hoped they were friendlier than the Sanctuary.

  With the Tesla being powered by a Panavice, the car sputtered along at about fifteen miles an hour. They passed the casinos and saw the faded Welcome to California sign.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to LA,” Julie said.

  “Yeah, maybe we can go to Hollywood. I bet there’s a Robert Pattinson grinner cruising around, maybe a Jennifer Lawrence,” Lucas said.

  Julie looked at her feet. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

  “Shoc
king,” Lucas said and gave her a friendly smile.

  “What if we are on Ryjack?”

  “We are.”

  “No, I mean another version of us.”

  “Not likely,” Hank said. “Isaac kind of guided our parents into creating us.”

  Lucas glanced back at Hank and then to Julie. “If I run into myself, you’ll have to kill it for me. There can only be one and I can’t do it.”

  “Can I be the one to do it?” Hank asked enthusiastically. “You know, to help you out.”

  Julie didn’t respond to his playful banter, and the stoic expression remained on her face. He knew that look for deep thinking and worrying.

  “There could be a billion of me,” Julie said. “Each one living out a slightly different life. Somewhere Isaac won and brought us all back to Marcus. Somewhere Simon killed us.”

  Lucas reached across the car and grasped his hand on hers. “There’s only one you and one me. Hank, however is a dime a dozen.”

  “I would like to get in a fight with myself,” Hank said, making Lucas and Julie laugh. “I would want to see what I would do and if I could beat myself up.”

  “I would want to talk to myself,” Julie added. “I’d bet I’d be super fascinating.”

  “Dang, you guys are weird,” Lucas said. “I wish I had another of me to put in here to listen to this.”

  “Couldn’t be much worse than what we’ve got now,” Julie chimed in with light heartedness. Lucas squeezed her arm and Hank barked out a laugh.

  The light feeling lasted a long ways as they crossed the desert for the next few hours. The freeway had been mostly clear except when they passed a tiny town, Baker he thought, but the sign had been torn apart.

  That town was tiny, but the one coming up, looked huge. He gripped the wheel and leaned forward, weaving between the ever growing clog of cars. They passed under a bridge and Lucas jerked around, thinking he saw something. Might have been a mirage or a trick in the sunlight. Then he saw it again. Slamming on the brakes, he shot the shifter into reverse.

  “What is it?” Julie asked.

  Lucas drove in reverse and looked behind him as he navigated. A man appeared behind them with a gun. Several trucks and cars pulled across the freeway, blocking any possible escape. Lucas slammed on the brakes. “We just drove into a trap.”