He pulled off to the side of the road and cut the engine. The last thing he wanted to do was rev his big block all the way around main street, alerting any Roamers that he was there. He pulled the Glock from the glove box, shoved it into his holster strapped around his shoulder, and zipped his leather jacket around it. The night was colder than he’d expected without the warm air blowing gently through his vents. It was summer, but the area wasn’t feeling the full effect quite yet.
“I should have waited until tomorrow,” he muttered as he softly closed the car door. He went to the trunk, pulled out his dart gun, and shoved it into his belt, careful to make sure the safety was on. You only shot yourself with a tranquilizer dart once. At least Dex hoped that was true.
He reached through the passenger window, grabbed the photo of the target, and folded it, sliding the paper into his breast pocket. Not that it would be hard to remember that stunned look from the image.
Dex headed toward town, his cowboy boots kicking up a light dust behind him. Nature had a way of reclaiming what once belonged to it when there was no one around to fight back. The asphalt was cracked everywhere, and small trees and shrubs grew randomly, especially near the edges of the road. Dex avoided those areas, walking directly down the middle of the street.
Dex pulled a small device from his pocket, almost like the cell phone he used to have as a teenager. He grinned to himself, remembering the day his dad had given in and bought him one. He was finally able to stop being a social pariah and was soon on social media like every normal kid. Three months later, the Overseers came, wreaking havoc on the world. Dex never really understood the point of it anyway.
He tapped the device to life and selected Trent’s name. The icon blinked five blocks from his position, still not moving. Dex would be there in no time. The guy was probably sleeping. This was going to be an easy one.
He entered the main street. He could swear he had just been in this town, but that place had been in Missouri, not Iowa. Everything looked the same. Post office, Sheriff’s station, grocery store, and of course, a diner. His stomach growled at the thought of a greasy grilled cheese and fries. That used to be his favorite. As a Hunter, he was given more freedom than anyone else, but he rarely found any deep-fried food.
He peered at the grocery store, then at the device, before shoving the small metal rectangle into his jeans pocket. Trent James didn’t seem to be going anywhere. There was enough time for a pit stop.
Dex tried the door and found it was locked, chains wrapped tightly through the push bars on the inside of the glass entryway. No way in. Not unless he broke the glass, letting anyone in the area know of his presence. Instead, he headed around to the rear of the building, where an overhead bay door sat a foot or two off the loading dock. Perfect. “What am I doing?” he asked himself quietly as he lay on the concrete and rolled through the opening. It was pitch black, and Dex pulled the same device out, hitting the flashlight feature before snapping it to his jacket. A soft glow illuminated in front of him, and he blinked to acclimatize to the brightness after the utter darkness.
He wasn’t prepared for what he saw, and he stumbled backwards, hitting the aluminum bay door with a thud. Two bodies hung from the warehouse rafters, their necks broken, the skeletons evidence this happened a long time ago. Another body lay sprawled on the floor beneath them, a hole in the skull. Tattered clothing clung to the form where the rodents hadn’t eaten it.
Dex wondered if it was the wife or the mother that came to find her loved ones hanged before she shot herself. Everyone had dealt with Earth’s new situation differently. Some had managed, and others had done things like this. He stepped past the woman, not letting himself feel anything but disgust at what they’d done to themselves.
Nothing was going to make Dex feel bad about his decisions. Sure, he worked for the Overseers, but he was surviving, and not in the slave fields or factories like all the others.
He kept moving, heading for the front of the store. It had been pillaged, but not as bad as a lot of the stores he’d been to. The town must have been cleared quickly twenty-five years ago. Anything that could go bad would have decayed a long time ago, but certain things were useable. Dex licked his dry lips as he made for the liquor aisle.
Most of it was gone, the shelves picked clean, but he noticed something on the top overstock shelf.
“Bingo.” He pulled a step stool down the aisle and reached for the box. It was pressed against the rear of the top shelf and its weight told Dex it was full. The name on the side of the cardboard almost brought a tear to his eye.
Whiskey. A full case of whiskey. He almost opened it there but stopped himself. He had a job to do, and he wasn’t good to anyone if he was passed out in a grocery store with dead people hanging from the ceiling.
Dex placed it near the front door and kept searching. The cans would be rancid, but he found a few first aid kits, which he took. He rationed things like that, but he liked to keep back-ups. Behind the customer service counter, he saw countless lottery scratch tickets and a pack of matches. He took the matches and noticed a single carton of cigarettes sitting under a newspaper. They were his brand too. What were the odds?
The carton was wrapped in plastic, and he tugged it open. When was the last time he’d smoked one of these? Five years? Even then they’d been so old, they tasted like smoking a dried-out sock. Still… thinking about the burning sensation as the smoke passed through his throat and into his lungs was enough to make him grab a pack, remove the foil, and pull one of the cigarettes out, placing it between his lips. He feigned an inhale on the unlit butt and smiled. This would do just fine.
He left it unlit and took the carton. Dex spent another ten minutes searching for anything of value and exited with a bag of supplies on top of the whiskey and cigarettes. He unraveled the chain on the front entrance, the metal links sliding to the ground with a clatter.
Dex opened the door, set his supplies on the sidewalk, and marched toward his target. He stopped in his tracks at an unfamiliar sound. He held his breath and listened hard. A coyote howled in the distance. Good. Coyotes wouldn’t try to shoot you.
He’d return for the whiskey and smokes when James was hog-tied, Dex would drive there, stopping as reward for a job well done. The icon showed he was two blocks from Trent James’ chip, and that was where he headed, turning east after the diner. The windows were smashed, and a dirty old sign claimed Dorothy’s Diner had the state’s best hamburger. Dex doubted that had ever been true.
He cut his light, opting to go in dark. Dex stopped at the parking lot entrance. The place looked like a hockey arena from his vantage point. He checked the device one last time for good measure, its softly lit screen glowing green against his face. His target was in there all right.
Dex unholstered the Glock and felt better the instant the metal touched his palm. It was a crappy world out there, and not much made him feel as safe as when he was armed. His footsteps felt too loud on the way to the entrance, and he lifted his boots to keep them from dragging on the gravel lot.
He wouldn’t let himself think about the whiskey, or the cigarettes. Or the fact that this was his fifth hunt in a row, and if he brought the guy back alive, he was owed a week of R and R. He needed it too. It was nice having the freedom to roam around, but he knew he was pressing his luck every time he went out on the road. Most Hunters didn’t last five years. He’d spent double that chasing the poor saps with enough balls to make a run for it.
Dex tested the door and found it wasn’t even locked. What an amateur. Dex found so many things done wrong by the people he hunted. If he was going to do it, he’d…
“Shut up, Dex,” he whispered to himself. He knew the Overseers couldn’t read his thoughts, but he didn’t want that kind of idea wandering around his mind. It wouldn’t end well.
He pulled the glass door open, the white lettering so worn, he couldn’t make out the arena’s hours of operation. He almost laughed to himself and stepped into the big dark build
ing. The device showed James in the southwest corner. All the way across the place.
Dex took his time, careful not to step on anything or make noise. There were a few hockey bags spread out on the black rubber tiles.
It didn’t take long to find the room James was hiding in. Dex saw the icon blinking on the screen and tucked it away, into his pocket. It was lucky number five.
After turning his light on, he pressed the push bar and flung the door open with his gun raised. “Freeze!” he shouted, unsure why he always used the old cop lingo. It was corny but usually did the job.
The room lay empty, his voice falling flat against the stark white cinder block walls. “What the hell?” He crept into the space and saw sticks lining the walls, skates hung on in neat little rows. In the rear stood a skate sharpening machine. That was when he spotted the blood.
“Crap,” he muttered, finally seeing the whole picture. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone chop off their own hand to get rid of the locator chip, but it was the first time it had been done with a skate blade.
The hand remained on the floor, cut two inches above the wrist. That would have hurt. A lot. Dex scanned for any clues and saw the section of gauze stuck to the blade beside him. If James had done this to himself, there was a good chance he would have passed out nearby.
It was going to be a long night.
He exited the building and heard the whirring of the Seeker drones. Not so worried about noise now, he ran through downtown, continuing until he found his car. There was no way he was letting the Seekers notify the Trackers that they found his target. This was his catch, and the only way to ensure the Overseers kept human Hunters alive was by being better than their damned robots.
The drone would know he was a Hunter by his chip, so he wasn’t worried about them sending the deadly Trackers against him, but that was when things became a free for all. Their violent programming tended to be indiscriminate.
Dex ripped down the main street, wistfully eyeballing the case of whiskey before heading out behind the arena.
Chapter 5
Cole
He ran. Cole had barely stopped for three days until he stumbled into the tumbledown stones of a historic monument.
His legs pumped for hours at a time on the first day, feeling exposed and completely vulnerable moving in the daylight, but he knew the difference between life and death meant putting distance between himself and the point where the Trackers would begin their hunt. He crossed the river twice, both times walking as far to the north as he could before the water became too deep or the current too strong.
Cole used every trick he’d ever been taught and more he’d learned the hard way in the years of wandering the country alone. He climbed the fire escape of a building, which still had four floors surviving under the burned-out roof before carefully breaking a window to make it look like he’d gotten inside, then crossing the perilous gap to the neighboring building to climb down and head away in another direction.
When he reached a smaller tributary late that first day, he ran in and out of the water and up both banks for varying distances before returning to the brook and repeating the process on the other side. When he’d spent as long as he dared, he went upstream as far as he could manage before climbing out and jogging down a dusty path that had once been a road. Cole was worried that his wet boots and clothes would leave a trace, but when he glanced behind him, he saw what the fierce sunlight did to the damp footprints as they visibly shrank away.
That first night he tucked himself into a narrow gap between two heavy dumpsters in an alley. He sat on his pack and hugged the shotgun with a square of old dark green plastic covering his hiding place. His ears stayed tuned to the frequency that would give him advanced warning of any pursuit, and the stress of the day’s action fought against the energy he had expended to keep him awake until the sun set and the temperature dropped to make the dried film of sweat itch his skin.
He didn’t cry. Cole hadn’t cried in as long as he could recall. Even when he’d lost the only people close to him in the entire world. He closed his eyes and slept lightly, ready to run again if he needed to.
The morning brought with it a cool sunlight and an uncomfortably full bladder. He stood, neatly folded the poncho and placed it into the top of his bag, which he swung up onto his shoulders. He glanced nervously around the alley with his ears on high alert as he unzipped and watered the dusty concrete. His eyes stung from the strong smell of ammonia, which served as a warning to find more water.
He had three bottles filled from the river the day before, all old and worn but blessedly free from leaks, and he drank deeply from one to quench his thirst. He leaned on a dumpster as the cold water hit his empty stomach and made him feel faint. He shook his head to clear the fog of hungry exhaustion before reaching into a side pocket of his battered backpack for a strip of dried meat and a handful of berries.
He pulled on his pack again, jaw working the tough strips of the small deer that had sustained him for well over a week. Stepping carefully to the far end of the alleyway, he stopped and listened for a full minute, turning his head up to the sky and closing his eyes to block any distractions. It was his hearing that had saved his life more times than he could count. His hearing that had given him enough time to escape or to hide from the drones scouring the open, empty countryside for others like him.
When he was satisfied that there was nothing searching the area for him, he moved on. The Trackers would be following his trail, or at least he had to assume they were to stay alive, but he hoped that his obstacle course of ploys to throw them off his scent would delay them by at least a day or more. He traveled west, away from the more built-up areas he saw to the east, despite his natural urge to head towards the buildings for cover. Thinking there might be other people hunting him, he chose the opposite path to try and avoid being predictable.
By the time he reached the next large collection of buildings, the sun was starting to oppress him with its warmth, but the breeze carried enough pace to keep him from getting hot. He spent a long time listening again, checking for the telltale whine of drones until he was satisfied that he was alone in the area.
He found a place to stay, selecting it carefully for its lack of large windows that would allow him to have a fire but still have ventilation. He chewed the last of the deer jerky as he searched the place for anything useful.
A partially used spool of thin wire. A spray can of lubricant with a flammable warning on it. A wire rack that he cleaned off to use as a cooking plate. A cap he placed tentatively on his head but put back as it was too big. A small set of pliers and a heavy wrench were added to his kit, replacing smaller and more worn versions.
Cole laid out all his equipment and clothing, upgrading where he needed to and cleaning and mending all that he had. Changing his clothes to wash them in a barrel half full of rainwater after he had scooped off the layer of scum floating on top, he hung them to dry over some patio furniture in the sun. Hanging them on a line to dry in the breeze would be as sensible as having a large fire in the open, as nothing really announced the presence of a person more than fresh laundry.
Maybe fresh was an overstretch, but without running water nearby to wash them properly, he had to make do and at least stop them from stinking up his pack. Wearing fresh clothes, he meticulously cleaned every facet of the shotgun and set out with his bag repacked minus the drying garments, having learned the hard way that he should never leave his equipment anywhere he couldn’t grab it and run at the first sign of danger.
It felt alien for him to be out and moving in the daylight, but his rhythm had been turned upside down by the drones finding him. He knew he’d stayed there at least two days too long, but he was still tired from the fever that had hit him hard a couple of weeks earlier.
A flock of pigeons took off from a patch of open ground and he set a spring trap nearby. Bending a sapling from the overgrown trees, he looped a snare of twisted twine around a careful constr
uction of twigs before delicately dropping a few of the wilting berries from his pack into the trap. He repeated the process twice more, having learned never to rely on only one source of food, and made his way to his temporary home.
He found a rack of old coats, laying them beside his pack for a mattress, before returning to the yard and collecting dried wood from a pile that had been cut years before. It was bone dry, eaten by insects, making it lighter than it looked, but it would burn well enough.
Tiredness overtook him that afternoon, putting him into a deeper sleep than he liked as he felt exposed, and he woke after nightfall. Creeping outside, he checked his traps, painstakingly retrieving the loops of twine from the two empty traps before finding the third full with a dove hanging from the makeshift noose. He muttered to himself happily as he unraveled the dead bird from the trap and took great care to scuff away any sign of human activity before cradling the small animal in his hand.
Cole made a contained fire, rubbing the flint against the edge of his worn knife to create sparks against the small ball of insulation pulled from one of the coats he sat on. He had sprayed the ball with a little of the lubricant oil, which helped it catch quickly before he added the tiny twigs used in the traps to nurture the flame. As the fire settled, he used his knife to open up his dinner and cut away the meat from the breast and legs, which he laid out on the mesh tray. He picked every last scrap of flesh from the miniature carcass and carefully burned the body and feathers of the dove in parts, not wanting to make the flames too large or the smell too offensive. After he’d licked his fingers clean of the meat juice, he doused the fire and scuffed away the other signs of his presence before tightening the straps of his bag and heading north once more.
Occupation: A Post-Apocalyptic Alien Invasion Thriller (Rise Book 1) Page 3
