The Wasteland: Book 6 of The After The Event Series

by Williams, T. A.

“Stop it,” Alec screamed as loud as he could at Xu.

  Crack.

  Xu smiled down at him. “You did this, not me.”

  Crack.

  “You’re a fucking monster,” Alec screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth. “Stop this now or I will fucking kill you.”

  Crack.

  “You can’t kill me, hero. I can’t die.”

  Crack.

  Finn wasn’t making noise anymore.

  Crack.

  Alec lunged toward Xu but the butt of a rifle crashed down onto his back, sending him back down into the ground and shooting pain all throughout his body.

  Crack.

  As Alec laid there on the ground waiting for his head to clear he felt liquid on his face. He hadn’t realized it had started to rain. He wiped the liquid from his nose and when he opened his eyes he saw the blood on his hand.

  Crack.

  Another spray of the liquid hit him.

  Crack.

  It was Finn’s blood. Alec looked around and saw everything had been touched by this. He looked up at Xu and the man’s face was drenched in blood.

  Crack.

  Xu finally stopped and bent over, gasping for breath. He looked over at Alec and shook his head. “Harder than I thought it was going to be.” He took in another deep breath. “Would you like to try?” He cracked another smile at Alec’s reaction.

  Alec dropped his head in the dirt and tried to gather himself. Finn was going to be ok; they were all going to be ok. Xu just needed a show of force as an example to anyone else who might think about escaping. They just needed to survive until the psychotic man ran out of energy.

  Xu said something in Chinese and handed one of the soldiers the whip. The soldier took Xu’s place and reared back and lashed out with the whip. Before Alec could say anything else he felt hands grabbing him and pulling him back. As he was pulled back he caught a glimpse of Finn’s back and saw the man’s skin had been cut into slices that were blowing in the wind. The horror of what he saw, along with the pain and fatigue, washed over him and everything went black.

  Alec

  The skin around his wrists felt raw. That was the first sensation he remembered feeling. Next was the same feeling around his ankles, followed closely by the cool wind blowing across his face. Alec opened his eyes and looked down at the roof of one of the buildings in their camp. He was suspended over ten feet in the air. He looked at the wooden cross he was tied to, his wrists and ankles bound by rope, already red and bleeding, and held back the urge to cry. He saw Finn still tied to the post he had been whipped on. The ground all around him was dark with dried blood. There was no way the man was still alive.

  “I don’t want to die…I don’t want to be here,” came a voice from behind Alec.

  Alec looked over his shoulder and saw that Steffan and the other man that had attempted to escape with them were also tied up. Steffan saw Alec move and stopped crying.

  “God, Alec, are you okay? I thought Xu had done something to you.”

  It took Alec a moment to find his voice. “No…I’m fine.” He tried to ignore the pain in his wrists. “Are you all doing ok?”

  “Yeah…I think so.”

  The sun was beginning to set in the distance and Alec watched as the members of Rambo and Yankee Camps began their trek back from their worksites to get their nightly allotment of corn. As they trickled past all of them kept their heads down, refusing to acknowledge that there were people strung up just above them. Alec caught a glance of Simon, who walked all alone in the rear of the group. The man moved as if he was a zombie and the other members of the group treated him accordingly. The surge of anger Alec felt pushed away the pain emanating from his wrists and ankles.

  “I can’t believe Jon trusted him,” Steffan said.

  Alec didn’t say anything in return; instead, he continued to stare at the man that had prevented them from escaping and stopped them from eventually liberating the camps.

  The picnic tables were behind them so they couldn’t see the camps eating, but they could hear them and they could smell the food. Alec’s stomach rumbled and he yearned for just a single handful of the tasteless yellow goop. Night came and the campers soon finished up their meal and went inside their buildings for the night. All that was left was the cold and sounds of the night.

  “How long are they going to keep us up here?” Steffan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Within hours his body was shaking from the cold and with his hands tied out to his sides he wasn’t able to ball up to try and keep warm. For the first few hours Steffan tried to carry on a conversation but soon their conversations consisted of nothing more than chattering teeth so they stopped. Alec’s body wanted to fall asleep but the cold wouldn’t allow him. He hung there, tired and cold, until the sun was just about to crest the horizon and the cold fled for the night. Only then was he able to pass into some semblance of sleep.

  Ally

  The soldier was free.

  Her eyes had shot open when she realized she had fallen asleep and when they did she saw the soldier lying across the room, but the wall of concrete was no longer on his legs. He lay there on his back, clearly exhausted, with sweat covering every part of his clothing. Ally grabbed the piece of concrete, sat up and pointed it toward the man.

  “Don’t move!” she shouted. “Don’t even think about it.”

  The soldier quickly sat up and began to shout something toward her. As his legs moved she saw him wince in pain and he stopped what he was doing. He was still hurt. Ally looked to her weapon. It was sharp...ish...but she would have to use it more as a blunt instrument. The soldier across the room was unarmed but probably considerably stronger than her. Her only advantage was that he was injured. She didn’t have many options. He would either get worse or he would get better. Now she stood a chance against him; once he began to heal and get his mobility back her chances would drop.

  Ally stood up carefully, and every ache and pain came rushing back to her. She gingerly put pressure on her injured ankle and then lifted it back up. The soldier wasn’t the only one that wasn’t mobile. She got back to her knees and saw the soldier relax. Her eyes scanned the room. It was possible that her bow, arrows and throwing knives were somewhere under the layers of debris that covered everything, but she had no idea how she was going to find them. As she searched she realized they seemed to be in some kind of tunnel that ran underground. It reminded her of a train of subway tunnel but she didn’t think anything like that existed in Los Angeles. But if it did, and that was what this was, then all she needed to do was clear out some debris and she could follow the tunnel to freedom.

  A rumble echoed in the room and just as fear began to creep up she realized it wasn’t the beginning of another earthquake; it was her stomach. Ally searched her pockets and confirmed she didn’t have anything. No food, no water and she was stuck underground with an enemy soldier.

  The soldier across the room pushed himself back farther and said something stern to her. He pointed his finger at her and then at her side of the room.

  “You stay on your side,” Ally said, mirroring the same hand gestures. She lifted up her sharp piece of concrete. “This is what you’ll see if you come over here.”

  The soldier stopped what he was saying for a few seconds and then repeated his hand gestures. She did the same. They seemed to have an understanding.

  As the day passed Ally cleared out enough of the rubble on her side of the room to give her a clear area to rest and sleep. Underneath the rubble was more concrete but it was smooth. No signs of her weapons, but she did manage to find something just as important. Under the wreckage near where she slept she found her water canteen, still half full. Water had never tasted so good. While she did this the soldier did the same and began to clean his face and tend to his wounds. Once the dust was cleared off of his face Ally got a better look at him.

  He was young, or at least younger than she expected. She had never really paid attention to
the other enemy soldiers but she didn’t think any of them were as young as the one she was trapped with. His dark shaggy hair threatened to cover his eyes every few seconds, and even in the dim light she could see the beginnings of a mustache just under his incredibly wide nose. He glanced at her throughout his rummaging about and she thought she saw the look of uncertainty in his eyes. Was he afraid of her? She felt some confidence returning. He wasn’t an experienced soldier and he was hurt. She stood a good chance.

  Ally found a large tarp under the debris that was about as long and wide as she was. So now she had a blanket. She placed it in her cleared out area and sat down to rest. She had cleared out enough of an area to tell that her side was a solid wall, which meant the tunnel leading away was on the soldier’s side. At the moment he didn’t seem to be interested in escape. He had torn off the lower tattered remnants of his pants and used them to bandage up the cuts on his legs. Ally thought he probably stood a better chance of his wounds not getting infected if he had just left them open to the elements instead of covering them with those dirty things, but she didn’t care. Now he was laid back trying to rest, while still watching her. He must have been up the entire night getting out from under the debris.

  She realized she was waiting for him to fall asleep, but why? Was she really ready to do something like that? Even if she was able to sneak up on him with her bum ankle over all the loose debris, could she really bring herself to kill the sleeping man? Wouldn’t he do the same thing? This man had come here to kill people like her. That was his entire purpose. He might be young but she was certain he had probably killed dozens of people like her. She thought of Tiger. She thought of Jess. She couldn’t be weak. If she was she would end up dead, just like everyone else around her. The soldier noticed her watching him and he sat up quickly. As the rays of sunlight began to disappear they watched each other, waiting for the other to make a move.

  Ben

  Ben sat down on the medical table and kicked his legs out as he laid back. The wound on his cheek had finally stopped hurting on the flight back to HQ, just in time for one of the doctors to come in and make it worse. They had only been out in the field for a short while but it had felt like an eternity. Ben had missed his soft bed, warm food and the feeling of safety that came with being miles underground.

  The door opened and a dark-haired nurse walked inside with her head buried in a manila folder as she rifled through the papers. She had dark camouflage scrubs on with her sleeves rolled up to her biceps and a Red Cross pin stapled on her right sleeve. Ben’s stomach tightened as he saw her face. It was hard with concentration and he noticed the worry lines on her forehead, signs she had been having either a long day, or a long week or month. Beyond that he noticed her ocean blue eyes and the dimple on her right cheek as she placed a pen in her mouth to free up her other hand. Ben quickly sat up on the medical table.

  “Hi,” she said, not looking up. “I’m Nurse Elly, and you are…” she continued, rifling through the papers.

  “Ben, my name is Ben,” he said, his voice coming out in a squeak.

  Elly glanced up at him for a second and paused, then she looked back up again. He couldn’t read her face, which caused his palms to sweat. Was there something in his hair, outside of the wrap that had been tightened around his head? He then remembered he had been sent directly to the Med center without having a chance to take a shower or clean up. He had the urge to sniff himself but didn’t think he could get away with it while she was staring directly at him.

  “Oh…hey Ben, my name is Elly,” she said, still staring at him.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Really? Have we met before?” she asked.

  “No, you already told me that,” he said with a smile.

  Elly’s face reddened and she looked back down at her folder. “Yeah…well, what’s wrong?”

  Ben touched his cheek gently and welcomed the tinge of pain that radiated through his face. It helped focus his mind. “I got hit by some debris in my cheek.”

  “Let me just check that out,” Elly said, walking up to him.

  She walked up just a few feet from him and the smell of lilac washed over him, and for a second he thought he was going to fall back. As she began unwrapping his bandages his mind was no longer focused on the pain emanating from his cheek. He was more concerned about the smell emanating from his body.

  Elly pulled the bandage off and gave a small tsk. “Looks like you are probably going to need a couple of stitches.”

  “Really?” Ben asked as he snapped back to reality. “It’s not that bad.”

  Elly stepped back and smiled. “You can’t tell me you’re afraid of a couple of stitches.”

  “No,” Ben sputtered. “I just haven’t ever had stitches before.”

  “You’re in the military, during the end of known civilization, fighting a war and you’ve never had stitches?”

  “I guess I’m just really lucky, or something,” he said with a cock-eyed grin.

  “Or something is right,” she said, smiling again as she cleaned his wound.

  “So...you from around here?” Ben asked and immediately wanted to jump after the words and shove them back into his mouth.

  “No, just visiting with some friends,” Elly giggled.

  Ben sat there, refusing to open his mouth again.

  “Yeah, I’m topside at the military camp outside the mountain.”

  Ben licked his lips and gave his mouth another chance. “So you were a nurse before everything happened?”

  “Nope, I was just a dumb teenager in high school. They trained me to be a nurse so I would be useful. They gave me a way to help take care of my daughter.” Elly began to put away the cleaning supplies.

  “So you live up top with…like your husband or boyfriend?”

  Elly’s face grew red again but she continued putting away the supplies. “No, just me and my daughter. It all happened before things got bad.”

  The disappointment that Ben hadn’t realized had filled his body quickly vacated. “Oh, that’s cool.”

  She giggled again. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  Silence.

  “So, uh, the doctor should be in shortly and he will get you all patched up,” Elly said, taking a step back.

  Ben’s mouth opened and closed in quick succession before he finally blurted out, “So maybe we should meet up some time.”

  Elly just stood there.

  “I mean, I’m new to this place and haven’t really had much of a chance to explore topside so I could use a guide or something.”

  “So now I’m your nurse and your tour guide,” Elly said with a straight face. Ben began to sputter again when she smiled. “I’m just joking. That would be cool. Are you doing anything tomorrow night?”

  Ben had no idea what he was doing tonight, let alone tomorrow night. “No,” he said regardless.

  “Meet me here at 1800 hours and I’ll take you up and show you around.”

  Ben felt like he was melting but kept it together for a few more seconds. “Ok.”

  Elly smiled, waved goodbye and walked out of the room. Ben crumpled back on the table.

  Alec

  He was falling, but slowly, and in short, measured bursts. He asked his eyes to open but they didn’t listen so instead he experienced the fall in total darkness. The ground came to him softly and then he felt his bindings, which felt like razor blades on his skin, become loose and then disappear entirely. Without thinking he brought his arms together across his chest and felt his chest muscles relax and scream out in distress at the same time. Sometimes the absence of pain can feel like pleasure and this pleasure washed over Alec. The cold water hit him like a sledgehammer and his eyes shot open as he let out a shout of surprise. He gasped as the world came rushing back to him. As his eyes adjusted to the bright sun he made out the post he had been tied to, along with several soldiers standing above him, watching.

  “You can’t die yet,” a familiar voice said from behind him. Xu walk
ed around from behind and stood before him. “You cannot die until I give you permission to.”

  Alec’s tongue felt heavy. He had been strung to that pole for nearly a day and couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten a drink of water. He tried to sit up and barely budged. The little energy he had left had been taken by the hot and heavy sun. He rolled his head to the side and saw Steffan had also been taken down and was passed out ten yards from him. The other man had been taken down as well, but wasn’t as lucky. The man was as white as a ghost and his tongue was bloated and hanging from his mouth. He was gone and had been for a while.

  Xu said something in Chinese and one of the soldiers flipped Alec onto his back roughly and then placed his hand behind Alec’s head, lifting him up. Alec didn’t have the strength to fight and when he saw what the soldier was about to do he didn’t dare try. The soldier put the cup of water up to Alec’s lips and the cool liquid ran down his parched throat. Alec had to focus and grit his teeth as he lifted his right hand up to help steady the cup, his tight muscles not wanting to cooperate. The soldier let go of the cup and it immediately began to shake when Alec took hold of it. Seconds later the water was gone and his thirst hadn’t even begun to be quenched.

  Xu crouched down next to him and knocked the cup away in one swipe. Alec looked up at the man’s sneering face.

  “I must thank you,” Xu said slowly. “Everyone that walks past you is filled with fear. They work harder and talk less. They now remember who is in charge. You helped me remind them.”

  Alec’s muscles were tight and every move he made filled him with pain but he focused on his anger. This man had killed nearly all of his friends. He tortured all of them and took a sick pleasure doing it. Chances were Alec wasn’t going to survive this, and this realization took away the last of the fear he had remaining.

  “You....you’re not a god,” Alec pushed out.

  Xu let out a loud laugh.