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

by Ryan, Matt

  “You have a generator?” Julie asked.

  “That’s the genius of Bob. Take a look at this.”

  They followed the man to the other side of the ride. A group of girls laughed and made faces at a glass cage. Inside, several grinners were chained together and placed on a conveyer belt. They ran at the girls making faces, spinning the belt under their feet and moving the Ferris wheel.

  “Wow,” Julie said. She got closer to the glass. “Aren’t you scared of them getting loose?”

  “Nah, ever since Bob showed us how to treat the dead as a tool, not a monster, we’ve turned this small community into a home. You guys are probably too young to have ever even seen anything like this, but back when I was your age, there were fairs and carnivals all the time. So many lights, you might go blind.”

  “I bet it was something to see,” Lucas said.

  The Ferris wheel inched along under its grinner power. Lucas didn’t like the idea of having grinners around, but he had to admit, they were finding a use for them.

  The man walked toward a huge tattered circus tent. Lucas hesitated at the flapping door, but the man’s smiling face didn’t seem to warrant any danger. He could kill the man quicker than he could ever raise that gun, if need be.

  They entered the tent. Beams of light shot through the large holes in the tent and the smell of decay, death, and body odor filled it. Partially filled stands surrounded most of the enclosure. As they walked by the people staring at the center ring, Lucas turned to see what they were watching.

  “Now, behold the dead. I will try to tame one, can they be our friend?” A man in a red jumpsuit asked the crowd.

  “No,” the audience roared back.

  “Send it out!”

  A door opened on the other side of the ring and a grinner stepped out. It rushed at the nearby people and slammed against the glass wall. The people in the stands screamed and moved back. When the glass held the grinner back, they moved, laughed, and mocked the grinner.

  The man at the center of the ring cracked his whip. “Over here, you beast.”

  The grinner ignored the people behind the glass and ran at the man in red. At the last second, the man slid his foot out and tripped the grinner. It fell on its face and the crowd roared with applause and laughter.

  “Please, I only want to be friends.” The man picked up a long stick from the ground and pinned it against the grinner’s chest after it stood. The grinner flailed at him, but the stick held steady.

  The man they followed stopped and leaned down to a man’s ear. “Bob, we have some new people. They drove up in a Tesla,” the man leading them said.

  Bob’s smile changed to a questioning look. The man wore a black shirt and pants, and kept his hair slicked back like an old time greaser. He motioned with his finger for them to get closer. “Let’s talk out back, where we can hear each other,” he said and rose from his seat.

  They followed the men downstairs to the back of the tent. Bob pushed the flaps of the tent open, letting the sun pour into the opening. Lucas squinted and kept Julie between him and Hank as they walked out. The crowd roared again at some unseen event behind them.

  “Please, let’s go to my trailer, right over here,” Bob said. He had a hint of an accent Lucas had heard before. He looked to Julie, but she only gave him a questioning look back. Maybe he imagined it?

  “If you don’t mind, Bob, we would like to get going soon,” Lucas spoke up.

  “Oh, this will only take a second.” Bob said in a sigh and climbed up the three steps that led to his trailer door. “Please wait here.” He entered his trailer and closed the door.

  “What’s your name again?” Lucas asked.

  The man holding his rifle perked up at the question. “Jeff.”

  “Hey, Jeff. Is this something normal here?” Lucas nodded toward the closed door.

  Jeff chuckled. “Yeah, he has us bring anyone we cross here, I think he’s checking you guys for something.” He shrugged.

  Lucas slid his fingers along Prudence’s string, when the trailer door flung open and hit the stair railing with a loud thud. Bob stepped from the open door and looked to each of them. He looked like a different man, his face pale and his hair disheveled.

  “Get in here, quick,” Bob said.

  “You need me?” Jeff asked.

  “Get the hell out of here, Jeff.”

  Lucas took in the situation, trying to remember his training with Nathen. Something was going on way beyond the surface. Then Lucas saw it, with wide eyes he looked at the Panavice in Bob’s hand. “Come on,” he said, trying to get Julie and Hank into the trailer.

  “I’m not going into that freak’s trailer,” Julie said.

  “We’ll be fine,” Lucas said, walking into the trailer and leaving the door open. Lucas took in the maps nailed to the walls. Pins and Post-it notes covered many sections of the map, each one with notes. Lucas thought of the many times he saw this in movies when detectives were trying to figure out a crime. He thought he knew what Bob was searching for.

  Hank closed the door and Bob stood with his Panavice in hand.

  Julie shot her hand to her pocket with a shocked look and pulled her Panavice out. “Where did you get that?”

  “It’s mine. Do you know how long I’ve waited for someone to show up? I’ve nearly given up so many times.” Bob plopped into an office chair.

  “You’re from Vanar?” Julie clarified.

  “Yeah, Marcus sent me here as a punishment. I was in charge of . . . well, he blamed me for a lot of stuff.”

  “Whoa, you’ve been stuck here for that long? Why didn’t you use a stone?”

  “What’s a stone?” Bob’s face ignited with hope.

  “There are portals,” Lucas answered vaguely.

  “I knew it. I woke up at the bottom of some kind of casino, everything was so crazy at first and . . . well, I eventually made it here.”

  “So what do you want from us?” Hank asked.

  Bob sprang from the chair and stepped to the trailer window. He pulled down the metal shades with a finger and peeked through the opening. He turned to each of them with a determined expression. “I want out of this hell.”

  “We’re going to LA to find a friend,” Lucas said.

  “LA?” Bob shook his head. “No, no, you can’t go there. I have many contacts from neighboring tribes and they all say the same thing. LA’s gone, there was something like ten million people there.”

  “That’s where we’re going.”

  Bob stepped from the window and paced for a bit. Lucas adjusted his bow. In these tight quarters, he wouldn’t have enough time to use it, but with Hank he knew he didn’t need to.

  “Before you go to your death, can you show me how this stone works and where it is?” Bob asked.

  Lucas raised a questioning eyebrow to Julie who shrugged. “If you get us transportation to LA, we’ll show you how to get back to Vanar.”

  Bob’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but instead of words he stepped to Lucas and hugged him. Lucas sent Julie a panicked look and waited for the man to let him go.

  “Thank you so much, you can have whatever you need.” Bob stepped back and looked at the back of his hands. “Look at my hands, I was promised to be a young man for my whole life, now I look like an old man. I need to get back before this becomes irreversible.”

  “Give us our car back and show us the safest route to LA, and, like I said, we’ll tell you what you need to know,” Lucas said.

  “Of course, of course, anything you want.”

  “Now.”

  Bob jerked back at the order, but recovered quickly. “As long as you keep your end of the bargain, I expect full details about how to get back.”

  “You’ll have them.”

  BOB ESCORTED THEM BACK TO the freeway. Their car sat in the center lane with a group of people surrounding it. He brought a couple of men with him to carry two bags of supplies. Lucas loosened his bow over his shoulder and tightened the quiv
er on his back. Bob looked giddy, but the two other men seemed emotionless.

  Lucas eyed Hank and nodded his head; Hank nodded in return. He didn’t need words with the big guy. Lucas leaned close to Julie and whispered, “Charge the car as soon as you’re in range.”

  The men around the car cleared a path. Lucas kept his chin high as he walked past them and opened the front door. He motioned for Julie to get in with a wave of his hand and she obliged, climbing into the driver seat and over to the passenger side. She locked her door.

  The two men carrying bags walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk.

  “You know, Bob, on second thought, we’ve taken enough from your people. Please keep the bags,” Lucas said. The two men held the bags and looked to Bob.

  “Oh no, I couldn’t in good conscience send you off without something.”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “I insist.” Bob pointed to the two men and they placed the bags in the trunk and closed the door.

  “Hank, get in the car.” Hank opened the back door and got into the car. “We will tell you what you want to know in the car, as we are driving away. Once we are out of view from your men, we’ll let you out.”

  Bob laughed and Lucas narrowed his eyes. He stopped laughing and took in a deep breath, looking at his two men and pointing to the trunk. They opened it and took out the bags. “On second thought, I think it’s very generous of you to give your supplies back to the people.” Bob slid into the car next to Hank.

  Lucas glanced around, got into the front seat, and closed the door. He turned to look into the back of the car, Bob showed him a warm smile. “I said I’d do anything to get out of this hell.”

  “Even kill us?”

  “Hey, it was just insurance. No hard feelings. Oh, and if anything should happen to me, there are men surrounding this car who will not hesitate to kill each one of you and feed your dying bodies to the dead.”

  Julie let out a long breath and slid lower in her seat.

  “You really think there will be another chance for you to meet someone who knows how to get off this planet?”

  Bob fidgeted in his seat and he grimaced. “No.”

  “All we want is to be on our way.”

  “Tell me about this stone and you have my blessing.”

  “Let’s get to a private place.”

  Bob nodded his head.

  Lucas pressed down on the pedal and the silent electrical motor moved them forward. He spotted a small opening in the pile of parked cars on the freeway. “Up here was your backup to kill us, wasn’t it?”

  “What? No, no.”

  They passed the first line of cars and several men with rifles ducked below the vehicles.

  “Those guys are always there . . . reani’s are everywhere.”

  “Reani’s?” Julie asked.

  “Yeah, you know, the reanimated people.”

  “Just make sure they don’t shoot us.”

  Bob waved at the men as they crept by. Lucas wanted to punch the pedal down and get out of Bob’s den o’ goons. He was sure they would be spread out for the next mile or so. Lucas let the speed build up to ten miles per hour.

  “How much longer? I really don’t want to be walking back in this area.”

  “Another mile or so.”

  Bob let out a long huff and rubbed his eyes. “I’m really trying to be patient here.”

  Lucas snickered at his uncomfortable mannerisms. “What did you do for MM?”

  “I worked with the scene generator.”

  Julie perked up in her seat. “Like the huge world generator type?”

  “Yep, used to watch some crazy stuff go down.”

  “I bet you did,” Julie said.

  “What’d you do to piss off Marcus?” Lucas asked.

  “Let some guy go somewhere he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Rule breaker, eh?” He turned the wheel to avoid a burnt big rig lying on its side.

  “Yeah, well, they took everything from me, my family, my life. I haven’t seen my kids in eighteen years.” Bob looked at each of them and lowered his eyebrows. “Now that I’ve shared, why don’t you tell me your story?”

  “Not much to tell really,” Lucas lied. “MM’s holding our friends in LA and we’re going to get them.”

  “Such loyalty is beyond mere friendships,” Bob said and rubbed his chin.

  “Why don’t you tell us your real name?” Hank asked.

  Bob jumped back from Hank. “Dear God in Heaven, man! I thought you were a mute. Fine, I can’t see the harm in it, Genter is my real name.”

  Lucas shook his head and smiled. He hadn’t even thought the man was lying about his name, who cared if he was? Hank sniffed out that lie, what else was he holding back? “Almost far enough, Genter.” The freeway cleared up some and Lucas sped up to fifteen miles per hour, half keeping an eye on the road and other half keeping an eye on Genter.

  Lucas glanced at Julie as she rose up in her seat. Her pale face turned to look at the back of the car. He kept shooting quick glances at her while he swerved around dead cars.

  “You knew Isaac didn’t you?” she asked.

  Lucas gripped the wheel and with mouth open looked back at the man’s face.

  Genter fidgeted with his hands in his lap, thumbs wrestling each other. “Yes, I knew him. He’s the one who got me exiled.”

  “Why did you get exiled?” Julie leaned so far into the backseat with a rabid face that Lucas contemplated stopping the car.

  Genter pushed back against his seat. “No, it’s impossible. You can’t be them.”

  “You are the one who set up the scenes for our parents, aren’t you?”

  Lucas slammed on the brakes and Julie’s butt hit the dashboard as she fell back. He stared at the steering wheel, unable to blink, unable to form a word. How could they run into the man who was there? Lucas pulled his stiff fingers off the steering wheel and turned around to face Genter. Julie moved with him and Hank slid closer.

  Genter shrunk down in his seat. “He forced me, threatened to kill my family if I stopped him. I never wanted to be part of his schemes.”

  “His schemes killed our parents,” Lucas said.

  “I’m sorry,” Genter said.

  “Sorry doesn’t bring back my mom.”

  “Get out,” Hank said.

  “What? We had a deal.”

  “Deal’s over,” Julie said.

  “It’s over when I say it’s over.” Genter pulled out a knife. Hank grabbed his arm and Lucas nocked in an arrow in one fluid motion, holding the bow sideways to fit in the car.

  Genter kicked the bow and opened the door at the same time, rolling out. Lucas lowered his bow and breathed rapidly as he watched Genter run past a few cars and disappear.

  “What just happened?” Lucas asked.

  “We better get moving, I bet he’ll have a posse after us soon,” Julie said.

  Lucas lowered himself back into the driver’s seat and pressed the pedal. He took the car up to twenty miles per hour.

  “That bastard,” Hank said.

  Lucas looked in the rearview mirror at Hank steaming with anger in the back seat. What was the possibility of crossing paths with someone involved in their parents’ deaths, on another world? One in a billion didn’t seem to be accurate, it seemed outright impossible, but it happened. He struggled to keep the car on a clear path as his mind wrangled with the idea. “Anyone want to say something about what just happened?”

  “I just want to get out of here,” Julie said.

  Lucas wasn’t sure if she meant Genter’s circus land or Ryjack itself. “Can you get me more power?”

  “I can for a bit, until my Pana overheats.”

  Lucas pressed the pedal and the car increased its speed to twenty-five miles per hour. At that speed, Lucas had to concentrate a hundred percent on the road. He liked the job, it gave his subconscious time to process what happened while he focused on avoiding the never ending obstacles.

&nbs
p; “Keep a look out for any of Genter’s people.”

  After an hour of driving Lucas relaxed his hands on the steering wheel and looked over to Julie.

  “A few more minutes and we’ll have to go slow again.”

  He eased up on the throttle and slowed to twenty. The rearview mirror didn’t show anything and they hadn’t seen a grinner the entire time on the freeway.

  “We’re only forty miles from Los Angeles.”

  Over the next two hours, they began to see grinners stumbling down the road and the freeway congested enough to where they drove on the shoulder more than the road.

  “Look,” Julie said. The skyscrapers stood like nothing happened and the sprawling city looked normal from a distance, but there were ten million people down there, waiting for someone stupid enough to enter.

  “Jeesh, look at the size of it,” Hank said.

  “That’s what she said,” Lucas said.

  “You’re so dumb.” Julie hit him in the arm.

  Lucas relaxed his hands, it felt good to be where they were. Genter wouldn’t follow them this far and they still weren’t far enough to be in the deadly city. “You got navigation on that thing?”

  “It’s just a dot on the screen.” Julie pointed ahead.

  “Guide me as best you can.”

  “There, get off on sixth,” she said.

  Lucas drove off the freeway and into the city streets. The vacant buildings were foul reminders of what was most likely hiding behind the broken glass and propped open doors. The crumbling road crunched under the slow moving tires. Lucas tried to find the quietest path but quickly gave in to the sound.

  “Keep an eye on the right, I’ll watch the left,” Lucas said. The car gave him some comfort for an immediate attack but as they went deeper into the city, he felt the path behind him closing off. The car started to feel like a trap the grinners would encircle and encase.

  Every hundred feet, he planned an escape route. A broken front door or shattered window could make a good escape path if they needed to ditch the car. He ensured the doors were unlocked and he took off his seatbelt. Julie and Hank, without any words, did the same. He saw Julie tensing up and keeping her back off the front seat.

  The streets weren’t as crowded with cars as Vegas, mostly parked on the sides of the street like they were left there. LA is where it started, the city must’ve not known what happened until it was too late.