An Acquired Taste

by Darrell Maloney

  Whether that was true or not, it soon became a moot point when the ground got rocky again and they lost the trail.

  On their second night out, as was their habit, they stayed up late hoping to catch the distant light of a campfire, or the scent of wood burning. Sara always carried a lighter in her pocket, though she wasn’t a smoker. All of them did when they were away from the compound for any reason.

  It was on that night the wind shifted and they caught the hint of smoke. They worked their way through the brush for half a mile until they came upon a family on an overnight fishing trip.

  Tom had taken the father aside, careful not to panic the children.

  “There’s a serial killer loose in the vicinity,” he whispered. “If he catches a scent of your campfire he can find you as easily as we did. I suggest you douse your fire as quickly as possible and get your kids to bed. Then I suggest you head out at first light.”

  Tom and John bedded down within earshot of the family, out of their sight but close enough to come running at the first sign of trouble.

  That was their second night out. Three nights before.

  For each of those five nights they’d done without a campfire themselves to make it easier to pick up the scent of someone else’s.

  But that was the only time they’d smelled smoke, except for the smoke from a cigarette which wafted in on a gentle breeze and then disappeared again just as quickly.

  For a brief time they wondered if they were no longer the hunters but rather the hunted. Whether the killer they were tracking was now tracking them.

  Watching them from afar, maybe.

  Perhaps looking for a clean shot.

  Or even worse, toying with them. Leaving false markers for them to follow.

  Maybe to take them even farther away from Sara.

  They doubled back for a time, looking for the source of the cigarette smoke, but found absolutely nothing.

  Other than that, they’d gone five days and nights before John finally caught a new smell.

  One he didn’t like.

  Not at all.

  “That’s burning human flesh,” he told Tom.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid so. The fire department burns corpses in the streets in San Antonio. They call them controlled burns. They wait until the wind is still and stack the bodies, sometimes head high, in the middle of an intersection. Then they stand ready to put out the fire if it gets out of control and set the bodies ablaze. It’s the only efficient way to get rid of them. There’s just too many to bury.”

  Tom had been insulated from such a spectacle, having lived in Junction since the world went dark. As hardened as he was, he shuddered at the thought. In Junction and in Kerrville the bodies were fewer. They were typically buried by relatives or neighbors.

  They followed the faint scent for almost two miles, their task made more difficult by an ever-changing breeze.

  Finally they came to a clearing of perhaps half an acre.

  It was dotted with cold campfires, some months old. A creek ran through the eastern edge of the clearing, and the men got the sense it was a frequent camp sight for hunters and fishermen.

  But it wasn’t a happy place. Not today.

  For as they entered the clearing their eyes locked onto a blackened heap at the other end.

  Tom’s feet became heavy, as though his cowboy boots had suddenly turned leaden.

  John barely knew Sara, having only lived at the compound with her for a short time.

  But Tom went way back with Sara. He loved her like a daughter.

  As they trudged along at what seemed like a snail’s pace he said a silent prayer. And that was something. For although Tom was a believer in the Almightly and lived his life accordingly, he seldom prayed. Not for himself or for anybody else.

  But he was praying now.

  The body hadn’t been there long.

  Perhaps two days, maybe three.

  They could tell because it was not yet covered by the fine dust which coated everything else in these woods.

  Beyond that, the charred remains of what once was a human being yielded few clues.

  The clothing had been burned away. So had the hair.

  It was definitely a woman, though her age couldn’t be determined.

  She wore no jewelry, but that didn’t mean much.

  Her killer surely would have taken Sara’s wedding ring and necklace.

  Gold was the new currency in the post-apocalyptic world.

  A man who’d kidnap, torture and kill his victims wouldn’t be above stealing their jewelry either.

  Tom examined the body closely.

  She was slight, as Sara was.

  She was about the same height and weight as Sara.

  The only part of her which wasn’t charred was part of her right hand. From that Tom could tell she was Caucasian.

  As Sara was.

  The corpse was too badly damaged to make any identification possible.

  But there was a chance… a very good chance, that this was the young woman Tom had grown to know and love. Had traveled across Texas with.

  Had been through a lot of harrowing adventures with.

  Tom Haskins was as tough as nails. He’d always been that way, raised by a father who was old school. Who taught his son he had to be rough, tough and unbending. For it was a man’s role to be a provider and protector of women and children.

  Tom was born that way and lived his life that way, even before the blackouts had hardened him further.

  Here was a man who was Texas-tough.

  Yet he went to his knees before the body in front of him.

  Something else Tom was: he was a man who kept his emotions to himself.

  He seldom showed any kind of emotion. No sorrow, no anger, no pain.

  He was a man who bore the ultimate poker face. One didn’t know what Tom was feeling through his emotions, but rather his actions.

  But today… today was different.

  For if this was his friend Sara, he’d failed in his tasking to provide for her and protect her.

  On this particular day, at this particular time, he was no longer the stalwart rock of a man, devoid of emotion.

  On this particular day, at this particular time, he was as emotional as anyone else he knew.

  And he sobbed like a baby.

  COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON, Book 11:

  A Troubling Turn of Events

  will be available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers in September, 2017.

  Have you checked out Darrell Maloney’s new series,

  The Yellowstone Event?

  Here are some fun facts about the Yellowstone Caldera:

  - It’s a real thing. It really does exist

  - It’s a super volcano simmering just beneath the surface of Yellowstone National Park

  - It has erupted in the past, and will erupt again

  - Scientists believe that when it erupts again it will destroy 20 percent of the United States

  - You do NOT want to be in that 20 percent

  Tony and Hannah are just a couple of high school kids who happen across a woman who will change their lives forever. She’s a carnival fortune teller who warns them of a great calamity soon to befall the United States of America.

  The old woman tells them it will be up to them to tell the world of the impending danger.

  And to save the lives of millions.

  It would be easy to dismiss her warnings as fantasy, except for the fact that she vanishes before their very eyes.

  And so begins a long journey for Tony and Hannah. A journey which involves a great mystery, intrigue and danger. Not to mention threats by a government which should be trying to help them, but instead is trying desperately to keep its secrets hidden.

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  Please enjoy this preview of

  Darrell Maloney’s new series

  The Yellowstone Event, Book 1:

  FIRE IN THE SKY

>   The Yellowstone Event series is available now at Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

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  “Come on! What do you have to lose?” she cried gleefully as she dragged Tony by his arm through the midway.

  “Um… how about ten bucks?”

  “I’ll give you a kiss.”

  “I’d rather keep the ten bucks.”

  “Excuse me, mister?”

  He stopped and held her, then laughed.

  “I’ll tell you what. You give me just one good reason why I should throw away good money on a fortune teller. If you can give me just one good reason, I’ll give in to your silly demands. But it’ll still cost you a kiss.”

  “And what if I don’t have a good reason? What if I’m just a silly girl who wants to find out once and for all whether you’ve been telling me the truth about marrying me someday?”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is all about. You’re gonna make me pay ten of my hard-earned dollars just to hear some old gypsy fortune teller say what I’ve been telling you all along? That hurts. It really does.”

  “What hurts?”

  “It hurts that you don’t trust me. That you’d believe some crazy old fortune teller but you won’t believe me.”

  “The fortune teller has nothing to gain by lying to me.”

  “And I do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Just what the heck does that mean, maybe?”

  “It just means that you’ve been trying very hard to get to third base with me lately. And you wouldn’t be the first guy who promised marriage to get the honeymoon first. That’s all.”

  Tony smiled.

  “Third base? Heck, baby. I don’t want third base. I want a home run.”

  The smile left her face, replaced by something akin to a little girl’s pout.

  “You’re not helping your case any.”

  He brushed the long brown hair from her face and kissed her on the tip of the nose. Then square on the lips.

  “What if she’s a fraud? Most of them are, you know. They just say whatever pops into their minds. They can no more tell the future than you or I can.”

  “I’ll be able to tell if she’s a fraud. If she is, I’ll let you off the hook. But if she’s genuine, I’ll know that too.”

  “Oh, so now you’re an expert on gypsy frauds?”

  Her smile returned and she coyly replied, “Maybe.”

  “Oh, geez,” he said as he stomped toward the purple tent. “The things I do to make you happy…”

  “I know, honey. That’s why I love you so very much.”

  She wasn’t quite what he expected, when she sat them at the table. For one thing, she looked… normal. She wasn’t the hideous witch he’d expected to find. She didn’t have hair growing from weird warts on her nose and huge silver hoop earrings. There weren’t bats flying around her head and the smell of cheap incense permeating everything in the tent.

  She looked as normal as Tony and Hannah.

  That sealed it in Tony’s mind. That proved she was a fraud. She didn’t even know enough to dress the part of a cartoonish gypsy. She didn’t even put out that much effort. How much effort would she put into reading Hannah’s emotions and verifying that yes, this guy sitting next to her was truly her one and only?

  Now Tony could tell his own future. In about five minutes or so Hannah was going to go storming out of the tent and straight to the car. She’d insist that he take her home immediately. And once there she’d let herself out, slam the car door, and stomp her way up the steps to her house.

  He’d be left in the car, his head still spinning, with absolutely no chance of getting lucky on this particular night.

  “Good evening, Hannah. Good evening, Anthony. I’ve been wondering when you two were coming to call.”

  Hannah didn’t catch it. She was too mesmerized by the woman’s eyes. They were pools of blackness, devoid of emotion.

  But Tony caught it. He’d always been good at that. At noticing subtle things others missed.

  “How… how did you know our names?”

  It was more of a demand than a question.

  “Oh, I know more about you than that, young man. Stella knows everything about you. Your past, your present, your future. I know what’s in your heart and what evil lurks hidden in your soul. I know the good in you. The bad. The secrets you keep. Now then, young man, the only question is, which things should I tell to Hannah and which ones do I keep to myself?”

  His head told him she was bluffing, that she knew nothing about him. That maybe someone who knew them saw them coming and tipped her off to their names. Or that there was some other reasonable explanation.

  His heart, it wasn’t so sure.

  “Relax, Anthony. You need not worry, for I know what’s in your heart. This girl loves you. She wants to know if you love her as well. She wants to know if you’ll marry her someday. It is a reasonable request. And I will share with her your true intentions.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped. Literally.

  “But how…”

  The gypsy placed a finger to her lips. Now was not the time for Hannah to speak. For she was about to receive the answer she’d been looking for.

  Tony was on the hot seat. He overlooked the fact she’d called him Anthony. Nobody, but nobody, called him Anthony. He hated the name. He thought it made him sound like an accountant, slaving away in a cubicle with his calculator and his Buddy Holley glasses.

  Forget all that. How in heck did she know why they went in there?

  Tony looked at Hannah. Hannah looked back at him. Both of them suspected the other of sneaking in to talk to the woman beforehand.

  And each of them could tell by the surprise on the other’s face that they hadn’t.

  The gypsy turned her attention to Hannah.

  “You are a beautiful girl, Hannah. You are desired by many boys. During your life you will be desired by many men. But at this place, at this time, your heart and your soul belong to only one man.

  “You’re here to find out if he feels the same way. You want to know if he will select you to be his bride. You want to know if he will father your children.

  “The answer is yes. Yes to both questions. He will ask you to marry him, and he will be a good father to your children. He will be faithful and devoted to you. He will never stray.

  “But…”

  They had been gazing into each other’s eyes. Hannah smiled as soon as she heard the gypsy’s words. As hokey and improbable as it was, she had the confirmation she’d been looking for.

  The “but…” stopped them short.

  They immediately turned their attention back to the woman as she continued.

  “But first, you must survive the great calamity. It will not be easy. You will be at great risk. Your loved ones and all of your friends will be in danger. Many of them will not make it.

  “To earn your life together, to earn your children, you must survive the great calamity. You must help others to survive as well. Only then, as you walk away from the greatest death and destruction this country has ever seen, will you finally deserve the chance to become one.”

  Hannah could find no words.

  Tony’s head was swimming, trying to make sense of it all. But his tongue was still working.

  “Great calamity? What great calamity? What in hell are you talking about?”

  Hannah put her hand on his arm to calm him. She saw no reason for him to get ugly. No reason to curse at the woman.

  But Tony wasn’t angry.

  Tony was confused.

  “Beneath the great park they call Yellowstone lies death and destruction. It is well hidden and mostly unknown. But it is there. And you… both of you, will have the unique opportunity to save the lives of many.

  “But… you must not marry until after the calamity is done. To do so will cause you distractions. You will be with child. You will lose your path, and your role in what fate hath wrought.”


  Hannah stammered, “What? What hath fate wrought?”

  “The destruction of the United States of America.”

  Now Tony was starting to get angry.

  “What in the hell are you talking about, you crazy old woman? What are you saying?”

  The woman took the attack in stride, as though she fully expected it. She continued to meet his gaze and merely smiled at him.

  Hannah took control, as she frequently did when Tony lost his cool.

  “I think we’d better go,” she said as she stood and pushed her chair back. Her hand was still on Tony’s arm, and she fairly pulled him out of his own seat.

  She turned back to the gypsy and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

  The woman merely nodded, and continued to smile.

  Hannah rushed Tony, who was now speechless, out of the tent and back onto the carnival midway.

  They were fifty feet away when Hannah noticed the ten dollar bill still clutched in Tony’s hand.

  “Wait. We forgot to pay her.”

  “Screw her.”

  But Hannah was nothing if not honest. Bad karma came to those who took advantage of others.

  She dragged him back to the tent and swept aside the flap.

  The old gypsy was nowhere to be found.

  The Yellowstone Event, Book 1:

  FIRE IN THE SKY

  is available now on Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble Booksellers.