The Life After War Collection

by Angela White

  “Flies.” Tents flapped in the wind, sounding hollow, empty in the winter wind, and under that, was a low hum of insects.

  Kendle controlled her guts. Even this far up, the smell was enough to choke her. Bodies, hundreds of them in various stages of decomposition, littered the valley at the bottom of the mountain.

  “What about corridors and roads?” Ben asked. He didn’t want to study it anymore. He’d been on duty when the sun rose. He’d stared at it for an hour before he’d woken the others.

  “They blew the tunnels or had cave-ins…” Tommy lifted the binoculars. “All the roads are gone!”

  “Avalanche, I’d guess.” Ben sighed. “We have no clear route up or in?”

  “There’s quake damage on the ground.” Tommy examined and relayed. “A lot of it. Most of the tents are down and there are piles of rocks at the base… Wow. There are rocks everywhere. What do you suppose they planned to do with those?”

  “There are also drifts in places between the destroyed tents.” Ben continued teaching even though he didn’t want to discuss it any more than he wanted to walk through it. “The sun melted some of it. They didn’t gather the rocks. The rocks were…deposited.”

  “Holy shit!” Ramer was scowling. “That must have been some avalanche to deposit so much rock.”

  “We felt the tremor the night before we left the refinery.” Ben put his gloves in his pocket. “It hit harder here.”

  Tommy handed the binoculars to Kendle, unable to endure more of the scene. “I vote we do some testing first.”

  “What makes you say that?” She studied the place where the entrance was supposed to be. The map Angela had provided was specific about where to be when they returned.

  “The birds haven’t gotten to all the bodies.” Tommy’s mutter hid his need to gag. “Check out the skin.”

  It took Kendle several minutes to locate a body that hadn’t been pecked or chewed on. When she did, stomach boiling, she noted the sores on the woman’s hands and arms. “That’s what we had on the boat! That’s the sickness I had!”

  “We have a counter in our gear.” Ryan remembered hoping they didn’t have to use it while out on the run. He’d never thought it was for their return to Safe Haven.

  “Get it.” Tommy gestured. “Let’s get in until we know what the levels are out here.”

  The team followed him into the cave, trying not to dwell on what this felt like, but the sense of being in a graveyard was too obvious to miss.

  4

  “What happens if we get there and Safe Haven is gone? Chances are good that they didn’t survive the earthquake. We haven’t heard a single response out of them.”

  Dirce glanced up with an expression of arrogant contempt, pinning Jarvis in place. “Just because I haven’t recorded descendant vibrations, doesn’t mean I haven’t picked any up. You would do well to follow orders and leave the thinking to those who know how to do it.”

  Jarvis’s lips disappeared into his face. He spun around and tossed himself into the copilot’s chair.

  Satisfied he’d put the man into his place, Dirce decided it would be a good idea to let the man in a little. “Descendants are able to open private lines. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of practice, but there are confirmed instances of the Safe Haven group being able to communicate without being picked up. The only way to track the calls is when they connect through someone’s dreams. That’s how I knew where the Black Widow was going. That’s how I know someone in that mountain survived.”

  Jarvis pulled up the map of the mountain that they were using, trying to ignore his bodily needs. Dirce had pushed them hard to get here, refusing to stop for things like meals and bathroom breaks. As a result, everyone was uncomfortable and grumpy.

  However, the explanation calmed Jarvis a bit. It had angered him that Dirce had been sleeping so much with such a large battle ahead of them, but he understood that the descendant had been doing recon. It was often hard to tell what Dirce was doing until it was done.

  “Why are you here? What’s your motivation for being thousands of miles away from home, risking your life for people who are probably dead?”

  Surprised at the questions, Dirce turned away from the monitors to regard his second-in-command–the newest one. “I’m a conqueror. The human race is supposed to conquer. Where else should I be?”

  Jarvis wasn’t certain how to respond to that, so he went with honesty. “Assholes like you have destroyed the world.”

  Instead of being angry, Dirce chuckled. “You have no idea.”

  Jarvis hated sitting still. Their convoy was rolling into position now, but with two thousand troops in position, it would be another day and a half before they were ready to begin the battle.

  Jarvis had a sudden sense that he shouldn’t be here for the battle. Maybe I won’t be.

  Dirce caught the thought, but wasn’t worried about being betrayed. Jarvis was the type to find something else to do during the main battle, ensuring his own survival. Dirce respected that.

  5

  “High.” Tommy held up the counter so everyone could view the reading. “But not enough to kill them all like that unless they’ve been here a long time.”

  “Does that mean the levels are dropping?” Kendle asked, stirring a pot of oatmeal that no one had the stomach to eat. This cave was short and wide, with stone ledges that appeared to have been cut into shelves, but there hadn’t been signs of inhabitants.

  Kendle had approved it after a sweep. They had parked a mile away and hiked in through the darkness, something she never wanted to do again.

  “Maybe.” Ben marked the numbers in his notebook. “I vote we wait until it’s at a safe level before we try to locate a way in.”

  “Are we going to?” Ramer’s expression was grim.

  “What do you mean?” Scott clenched a fist, glaring. “’Cause if you mean we don’t go in at all and bugout instead, I’ll punch you in your mouth!”

  Ramer didn’t answer, but all of them felt his reluctance. No one wanted to spend a week digging into a rotting tomb.

  Tommy lifted a brow at Kendle.

  “We’ll wait. How long are we set for?”

  “A week.” Ryan paused. “More if we ration.”

  “We’ll scavenge as soon as the levels are down.”

  No one answered Tommy’s comment, all thinking of what that would be like. The bodies would have food and gear they could collect while trying not to get sick from any of the various health concerns in that valley.

  Kendle glanced around, sensing their need, their grim outlook for the future. What would Angela do here? Kendle dug through her memories.

  Well, she’s always been a bitch to me when I was at my lowest and I’m still alive. Kendle stood up. “You’re Eagles. Act like it.”

  Kendle marched away before any of them could pick out her doubts about their future. They would discover it together over the next days or weeks. Until then, she would try to have faith that such a cruel leader was strong enough to keep her camp alive even under these impossible conditions.

  Don’t let me down, Angie, Kendle begged silently. I’m almost out of tricks to keep my team alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Billy’s Run

  1

  Billy was still on the move.

  Other than brief stops for sleep or to warm-up, he hadn’t paused in his westward trek. He was out of food and water, but his training was keeping him alive. He didn’t remember the lessons that kept popping up in front of him, but he didn’t hesitate to use them. It was a relief to have skills to rely on, but he would have tried anyway. The need to be in the west had strengthened since he’d escaped the cave and the odd residents trying to survive there.

  In the west, the sky was an ugly shade of green that warned of bad weather coming. Billy wasn’t worried. He was glad to be out of the mountain and alone. Before the war, he’d been surrounded by people. After the war, he assumed it was the same, since Safe Haven had been so l
arge, but now, he liked being by himself. I know I can trust me. No one else has that honor.

  I will.

  Billy nodded in recognition of that. Yes, I’ll trust you with my life and beyond, but don’t disappoint me or I’ll kill you.

  Remember those words.

  Billy shuddered.

  He was near the town of Anniston, skirting around it as he had every other sign of civilization. It didn’t matter that the buildings were windowless or that the only thing moving on the streets was garbage. What he was hunting for wouldn’t be found in a concrete jungle–at least not one above ground. The town was looted and half-burned to the ground. It held no signs of life and that was a relief, but he wasn’t going in there. The supplies and gear he needed wouldn’t be in there. The town wasn’t large enough to have a military supply depo or a hidden weapons cache.

  Behind Billy, storm clouds brewed. He had holed-up in a shed overnight while the rain had drenched everything. Back on the road as soon as it stopped, his boots and jeans were stiff with dried mud and tiny bug carcasses. The insect swarms as he cleared the body field around the mountain had been impossible to avoid.

  Billy scratched his neck absently, thinking he would have to venture into a city soon to find more gear. Though he wasn’t sure how he knew it, the specific items he was searching for wouldn’t be found in the country where he preferred to stay. He also knew he was more than capable of driving, but the dreams he was having were too random and distracting for him to risk losing control while at the wheel. It was better that he was on foot. When the visions came, he could kneel down behind brush or debris and wait for them to pass.

  Billy shivered at a strong gust of wind, but not from the temperature. It reminded him of his visions. The apocalyptic scenes in his dreams were real. That was where he was going.

  The sun was high in the sky above the clouds of grit as Billy passed the town and reached the open countryside. According to the map that he had found in his pocket with the card from the little girl, he would be in a rural area for the next week. Billy wanted that time to collect his thoughts and to finish making plans for the journey. Despite his injury, he had many of his memories now. The problem was, all of it was from before the war. He knew who he was now and who he had been, but he had no idea where he had been for the last ten months or what he’d been doing. He had skills and instincts that hadn’t existed before the war and he was hearing voices. Half of his mind was telling him that it was from his injury, that when he healed, it would go away. The other half of him wondered if he was like the folks in the mountain. That thought didn’t scare him as much now that he was out of that tomb.

  Thirsty, Billy detected the sound of water. He went that way, digging into his kit. He didn’t know if he had packed it before his injury or if the little girl who had provided the card and map had also given him the items in the waterproof pouch, but he was happy to have most of it. Billy took the Life Straw out and knelt down next to the slow-moving creek. He didn’t pick out anything that implied the water was dirty or infected, but the Life Straw was supposed to filter out 99% of it anyway. He began sucking the cold water in, letting his mind wander.

  Almost as soon as he began drinking, visions began hitting, slapping at his reality until he was standing in the west with his matching Colts in hand. Using them to protect a woman, it was amazing to watch himself in action. His guns fired in rapid succession, never missing a target.

  Billy snapped out of the vision, aware that the Life Straw had fallen from his mouth. He spotted it bobbing down the water and splashed in after it. He only had the one.

  Billy stored it in his pocket, pants soaked to the knees. The wind wasn’t as bad as the day he had escaped the mountain, and every hour that he had traveled westward had brought better temperatures, but it was still too cold to be in wet clothes. Billy studied the surroundings and found a small farming shack. After circling the building twice and peering into the windows, he was convinced it hadn’t been used in a long time.

  The wind whipped around him, creating small snow tornadoes that slammed into his legs and broke apart. Billy shivered, hurrying toward the shack.

  He pried the creaking door open, wiping cobwebs away as he stepped in. Once the hut was shut and the draft stopped, he felt better.

  Using the items in the kit, it only took a minute to get a small fire going, with his boots and socks drying by it. There had been jeans and a shirt in the bag, along with a thin blanket. Billy wrapped up in the blanket, saving the clothes for morning. It was late afternoon right now, but by the time his clothes dried, it would be dark and that was a bad time to be roaming the wastelands. He had learned that the hard way right after leaving the mountain. He’d woken to the sound of a camp around the building where he had curled up, half frozen. It had forced him to spend the entire day in the attic of the small building, hoping he wasn’t found. When the refugees had settled down for the night, he had been able to slip away, but it had taught him a huge lesson.

  As he sat there, thirsty and hungry, but enjoying the warmth and the freedom, Billy again let his mind wander. It took him to the woman who haunted his dreams. Tall and slender, with long braids and a hawk-like profile, she beckoned to him relentlessly.

  I’m in the west. Where are you?

  Billy snapped awake. He hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep, but it was obvious that he’d been out for a while. The fire was down to fading coals.

  Snap!

  Billy heard the sound of footsteps outside, but it was too late to run. He lifted one of the Colts from his hip, bracing to do whatever he had to in order to survive.

  “We’re coming in. Don’t shoot.”

  The door opened slowly, revealing two men in dark clothes.

  Kevin hurried into the hut, not worried about the gun pointing at him so much as the expressionless way the man was regarding them. “It’s Billy!”

  Jeff shut the door, not sure how he felt about that news. He nodded at Billy, also spotting the lack of recognition and the defensive position. “How’s it going?”

  Billy struggled to pull forward any memory of the two men who were staring at him in recognition and surprise. They had beards and dangerous eyes that scanned him the same way he was scanning them. He felt a brief connection, but it couldn’t compare to his visions. “Do I know you?”

  Jeff studied Billy’s mind and was dismayed to locate no memories of Safe Haven before the earthquake. He was relieved however to find all kinds of memories of Safe Haven after the quake. “They survived. He was there.”

  Before Kevin could respond, Billy’s grip tightened on the Colt. “You’re like them. You should leave.”

  Jeff set down the bags that he had carried in so that his hands were free. Next to him, Kevin did the same.

  “Get out of here!”

  Billy’s fear reached both men. Kevin looked at Jeff. “Was he hurt or something?”

  “He doesn’t have any memories before. It’s like he wasn’t even there.”

  Jeff noted Billy’s shaking hand and dazed expression. “He’s having a vision. He may not mean to fire, but he might.”

  For one second, Billy recognized Jeff’s voice. He lowered the weapon and released the trigger as the mysterious woman flashed in front of him again.

  Never fire without a reason.

  I won’t.

  There’s a time for conversation and there’s a time for shooting. You have to know which is which.

  I’ll work on it.

  See that you do.

  Billy stayed with the woman, absorbing her lessons as if they were water and he was dying of thirst.

  Kevin and Jeff observed, both confused, but Kevin more so than Jeff. Jeff almost understood what was happening. He was missing a small piece of the puzzle, but even that was taking shape as they listened to Billy talk to himself.

  “No, but I don’t trust any of them.”

  Kevin and Jeff sat down where they were and began making their camp, staying between Billy and
the exit so he couldn’t disappear before they were able to grill him about Safe Haven. It was obvious that he had left, but not why.

  “No, they were scared.”

  Jeff pushed into Billy’s thoughts. Not used to using his gift in this way, it was a struggle to locate the correct door out of the hundreds that appeared in his mind to connect them. He followed the brightest light, assuming it was live. As he opened the connection, he was sucked into the vision.

  The woman in front of Jeff resembled Adrian and Angela so much that he flinched, scowling.

  The woman regarded him without a change in expression, but her disapproval was clear.

  Ashamed, but not sure why, Jeff examined the surroundings in the vision. In front of the woman was an ocean shore guarded by monsters that he refused to linger on because he didn’t want to have to admit that things like that could exist. He was having trouble adjusting to magic. Around the woman were six men dressed as Eagles. Jeff recognized two of them. In the vision, Billy was on the woman’s left. One of the soldiers from the government fight, David, was on her right.

  Be gone now.

  Jeff was shoved out of the connection. He winced as the door slammed, breaking the line. “He believes he has a job in the west. I didn’t see the past. We’ll have to hope he can tell us what happened.”

  Billy lifted his chin, wiping away drool. “Ask your questions and go.”

  Kevin scowled. “That’s no way to treat a teammate.”

  Billy stared at Kevin. “I don’t know what I was before. I only know what I am now and I’m not your teammate.”

  Jeff motioned for Kevin to stop before the man could argue. “We want to know what happened in Safe Haven. We’re on our way there to help if we can.”

  Billy’s lips tightened and his face became hostile. “I was trapped in the mountain with the freaks. They wouldn’t let me out.”

  Jeff and Kevin both frowned.

  “Why do you call them freaks?”

  “Is everyone okay in there?”