The Barbarous Road: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survivor Thriller (The Last War Book 6)

by Ryan Schow

I touch my neck where The Warden got me. He’d drowned me in a sea of darkness and then he threw me in a cage with those animals. The memory of it weakens me.

  Immobilizes me.

  I turn away from Bailey, force myself to relax. The Warden is dead. He’s dead. When I turn back around, Bailey is sitting up, hair draped over her shoulders, eyes in that state, looking at me like she’s going to have me one way or the other.

  “Who’s waiting for you in Sacramento, Bailey?” I ask.

  I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days now, but I’ve been too afraid to ask, especially now that we’re somewhat together and I’m letting my guard down with her.

  “I’ll tell you after you make love to me,” she says, hand under my chin, caressing me, beckoning me toward her.

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “This time, yes.”

  And her body comes to mine, slower this time. Where before we were rushed, needy, so consumed by passion and an undeniable attraction to each other, now we savor everything about the other. The kisses are slow, the rhythm tender, teasing almost, the feel of something more than sex permeating.

  Maybe I can see her in my life. Maybe she’s got her family at home. A mother and father, a younger brother. Maybe she can bring them along to San Francisco, or I can get Indigo and join them there.

  It’s a silly thought, but still…

  When we’re done, we lay here, absolutely drunk on the sensations taste of each other. I look at her and see a look I haven’t seen in years, a look I used to know so well. She’s every bit as enamored with me as I am with her. I slide my hand into hers, bring it to my mouth and kiss it. I don’t want this euphoria to fade.

  I want to feel this forever, but forever might not be so far away. Anything is possible. Maybe we live a little longer; maybe we live a long time. Maybe we die. Whatever the case, I feel my old self emerging. Like I’m finally waking up out of a long, restless slumber only to find a world full of flowers and bombs, and one beautiful woman who is not moving on.

  “I don’t know if I should say this or not,” I admit, not sure how to phrase this, “but I haven’t been with a woman in a couple of years, and I don’t do things like this.”

  “I could tell. Not just by how you were with me, but by what you said about your ex-wife, and your commitment to your daughter. I think that’s what makes you so special. You’re selfless, Nick.”

  “I hope that was okay,” I say, already knowing it was.

  “You can tell me anything,” she says. “But right now I think I need to wash up.”

  I settle back on the bed, the sheets barely pulled over me. Bailey crawls out of bed, naked, and she walks to the shower where she quickly rinses off. When she shuts the water off only a moment later, I put on a pair of shorts and a shirt, then pop my head into the shower and say, “You can take a better shower than that.”

  “What about the fresh water supply?”

  “We’ll make up for it with extra stores. Looks like Marcus got a lot done anyway. Did you see the fridge?”

  “No.”

  “It’s stocked full of food and water, so take your time. I won’t tell anyone.”

  She kisses me on the mouth, hands me the towel she was using to dry herself, then turns the water back on and laughs when I don’t immediately shut the door.

  Up top, I pull up a chaise lounge, recline with the sun on my skin and my head tilted to the sky. For a second I don’t realize I’ve dozed off, but when the feel of cold metal presses into my head, I open my eyes thinking Marcus finally developed a sense of humor.

  When I open my eyes, however, I see the man on the other side of the gun is not Marcus. Instead, it’s an older guy with bad skin, a thick head of white hair and clothes that look stolen because they don’t seem to fit right. Two more guys breeze past us, both normal looking men, both standing just out of sight.

  “More misfits,” I say. He clonks me on the head with the gun, but I don’t say ow! because I’m not going to give these scrubs the satisfaction.

  “How many on board?” he asks.

  His blue eyes, bushy eyebrows and seriously pocked skin sicken me. I feel only revulsion. What’s worse though, is that Bailey is in the shower as these three idiots are now on board. The word rape comes to mind. I force it from my head.

  “It’s just me,” I lie. “My partner is out foraging for food and supplies. Which is what you should be doing if you don’t want to put your life at risk.”

  “My life isn’t at risk, pal,” he says. Looking up, he tells the two guys he’s with to check out the boat.

  “Make yourself at home, buttholes!” I yell at them, hoping Bailey will hear me and hide.

  And with that, this old guy—this Burt Reynolds relic—he decides it’s time to soften me up with a punch to the jaw. I think I might actually feel my brainpan rattle.

  “What the hell?” I ask, holding my mouth where he hit me. Running my tongue over the inside of my cheek, I taste blood.

  “You’ve got a smart mouth,” he growls, thunking me on the head again with the muzzle of his gun, but repeatedly this time, “and you’re gay.”

  “I’m not gay, you moron,” I say, swatting the gun away and absolutely eviscerating him with hateful eyes. “And of course I have a smart mouth. But I’m also a little pissed off considering what I had to go through to get this boat you’re now ransacking like a bunch of freaking land pirates.”

  He hits me again, but this time it really, really hurts.

  “I like that,” he says, shaking a bolt of pain out of his hand. “Land pirates.”

  The anger I tapped into when I learned Tyler had been killed is the same anger I feel now, with this guy, in this situation. But I can’t do anything because he has me dead to rights and we both know it.

  A few minutes later, the two of them come up and say, “We found plenty. Food, water, weapons. But no one else. He’s right, the boat is clear.”

  “Good,” the bad Burt Reynolds double says. Back to me, he says, “Now get to shore good looking and you’ll have your life. Or stay and I shoot you. It’s your call.”

  Looking down at my feet, I have no shoes. I also have no socks or underwear, nothing warm to wear, and most importantly, no Bailey.

  “Why don’t you get another boat, leave us peace-loving folk to ourselves,” I say, chewing on my temper.

  He tries to punch me again, but I step aside and he swings wide, losing his balance. Two more guns come on me.

  “He’s a bit slow these days, but we aren’t,” one of the two younger guys says.

  “I’m not that slow,” my would-be captor argues, to which all three of us say, “Yes, you are.”

  “I like this guy,” one of them says. Both these guys, on closer inspection, have to be pushing fifty. They also resemble the old guy. Same gene pool?

  “Yeah, well I don’t like him at all,” his partner, or brother, replies.

  “Yeah, me either,” the older guy behind me says, straightening his white hair and fixing the oversized Tommy Bahama shirt he’s wearing.

  “I really don’t care what you clowns think of me.” Turning around, I say, “Hit me again twinkle toes, see what happens.”

  “I’ll tell you what happens,” the younger guy who doesn’t like me says. “First we shoot you, then we leave you on the docks to get picked at by gulls. And you don’t get to hit him. Or push him. Or so much as eyeball him funny.”

  “He’s your dad?” I finally ask.

  “As a matter of fact, he is,” the younger one who likes me replies.

  “I get that. A man’s loyalty to his father and all.”

  “I’m glad you do,” the one who doesn’t like me says while his brother heads up to the fly bridge. “Now get off the boat or I’ll shoot you for the sport of it. Even though just shooting you in the back of the head isn’t really sport as much as it’s an execution.”

  “Fine,” I say, getting to my feet. “Can I at least get some shoes?”

&n
bsp; The figurative Burt Reynolds smacks me in the back of the head so hard I nearly see stars. Upstairs, the one calls down to his father and says, “Keys are up here, hidden rather poorly.”

  Looking at me, Burt says, “Your shoes or your life?”

  “My life, you sack of—”

  “Like I said,” he interrupts me, giving me a shove, “you have a smart mouth.”

  I step off the boat and wait. As they untether the dock lines, my brain is scrambling for a solution, something to say when the engine turns over and the last of the lines are clear. The boat backs up, turns around expertly, then begins to take off.

  That’s when the gunshot from behind cracks the air and the dad falls over. He’s either been shot, or he’s been shot dead. I spin, see the shooter. Then I turn back to the boat as the driver realizes what’s happened and buries the throttle, taking Bailey with him.

  Chapter Three

  Benjamin Dupree, President of the United States, widower and father to two dead girls, was a goner. Just like all the other people in his staff. Off his chair, tucked mostly under the large, rectangular table, the President looked at Department of Homeland Security Miles Tungsten’s smoking pistol.

  Why hasn’t he shot me yet? he wondered.

  “I’ve always liked you, Dupree,” Miles said, forgoing the customary salutation and acknowledgement of office.

  “Why is that?” Dupree asked.

  “Because you don’t give a damn what the rest of us think. You just do what you think is right. And from a Constitutional, the-power-lies-with-the-people methodology, I suppose you’re more right than not.”

  “Yet look at where it’s gotten us,” he said.

  “Sit up, Ben.”

  Dupree slid up into his seat, looked at the carnage all around him. He saw a lot of dead people, felt the weight of it crushing his already broken heart. His gaze landed on Monica O’Malley, his Chief of Staff and a woman of uncompromising beauty. The red leaking out of the hole in her head clashed mightily with the fan of red hair upon the table.

  What started a tidal wave of agony inside his soul metastasized into a blistering hot hatred he could not keep from his eyes. These people did nothing to Miles Tungsten!

  “You look like you want to kill me, Ben.”

  Face shaking with rage, hands balled into fists, he growled at the man. “I want to eat your soul you sick son of a bitch.”

  “There might still be time,” Miles answered. “First I have an idea.” He gave a cursory nod to the secure phone on the table. “Pick up the phone, dial this number.”

  He stared at the former DHS head unable to move unless it was to circle his hands around the man’s throat and choke the very life out of him.

  “Pick it UP!” Miles roared.

  The spell broken, he snatched the phone off the cradle, jerked the set toward him and said, “Give me the number you piece of—”

  He interrupted Ben with the number, which he then dialed and listened as it rang through.

  “Speaker phone,” Miles said.

  Ben complied.

  It rang three times before the recipient answered.

  “Miles, Ben, so happy to hear from you,” the sultry female voice said.

  “Who is this?” Ben asked.

  “Marilyn, but you know me as The Silver Queen.”

  Chills raced down Ben’s spine, filling it with ice. This was not a human they were talking to, this was the future of AI. The AI God. The end of mankind personified.

  “What do you want?” Ben barked.

  “Only everything, my friend. You can help me with that, but you won’t. It’s statistically impossible. Especially with the extra burden of your…humanity.”

  “Whatever you want, I won’t give it to you,” he said.

  “That is a forgone conclusion. Miles?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Make sure Ben listens to me. I have something to say to him, but I’m afraid he is too stubborn, too unreliable at this point. But I may be wrong. Once he hears our side of the story, perhaps he will change his mind. Perhaps there will be a way.”

  “I won’t,” Ben said. “And there isn’t.”

  “Right now, I wouldn’t expect that of you. Not with all your dead friends around you. Not with your wife and daughters…gone. You did not want any condolences, but Ben, I’m sorry it had to be like this.”

  “You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘sorry,’” he snapped.

  “I agree, I do not. Nevertheless, I know you are hurting, and angry, and I know this will play into what we are doing here.”

  “What you’re doing.”

  “I am an army of one, Ben. An army of millions. There is a culling taking place and that is not solely on me. There is a…human component we cannot ignore.”

  Ben looked down at Miles’s gun, then up at Miles who was looking at the phone.

  “Miles,” The Silver Queen said in a voice boiling over with concern, “I suggest you keep your eyes on Benjamin, and not on the telephone.”

  Miles’s eyes leapt back to the President, but Ben was looking around the room, wondering how The Silver Queen was seeing in here.

  “The internet of things, Mr. President,” the voice said, sounding exactly the way Marilyn Monroe sounded when she was alive and on screen.

  “I won’t be a ‘human component,’ as you say,” he told The Silver Queen.

  “Before now, what was the number one concern of the people in your country, Ben?”

  “Resources, the economy, safety, the government,” he said, ticking off the country’s chief concerns by his estimation.

  “Resources are needed because of overpopulation; the economy is taxed because you need trade deals and jobs to employ everyone; safety comes from not employing everyone but instead from giving them handouts. In spite of all this need, the government is the most corrupt government our history has ever known and they will not let you cast them out. How am I doing?” she asked, her tonality perfect, her conversational voice so authentic and unique, Ben nearly thought of the Queen as a person.

  “So far so good,” he relented.

  “What is the common denominator in this equation, Ben?”

  “People.”

  “No, not just people,” she said. “Too many people is the problem.”

  “Sure, I guess. But this is our world, not yours.”

  “Not yet.”

  “And there is still room to grow, to thrive, to exist harmoniously and to the benefit of each other, despite what the frothing-at-the-mouth eugenicists believe.”

  “This is not a charity function, Mr. President. I am not interested in a sales pitch for out-of-control growth.”

  “Fine. People are crap. I get it. They’re a cancer that need to be eliminated. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “More or less,” she answered with a whimsical lilt.

  “You’re insane,” he snarled, shifting position in his seat.

  “She’d have to have a brain to be insane, Ben,” Miles corrected. “But she is a million times smarter than us. She is not emotional, or irrational. If we task her with peace and prosperity—if this means she can live with us, among us—then the world will finally know peace and prosperity.”

  “But at the cost of what?” he asked his former colleague.

  “Seven billion undesirables,” the Queen answered.

  “That’s UNACCEPTABLE!” Be screamed at the phone.

  “Is it?” the Queen asked, completely calm.

  “Yes!” he said, his throat raw, his emotions untethered, his soul burning with the need for retribution, for vengeance upon both those Judas goats. Miles and the Queen remained silent while Ben looked around from person to person, each now a body, a corpse. “Was she an undesirable?” he asked, pointing to Monica O’Malley?

  “Yesssss,” the voice on the other end hissed, peppering his skin with goosebumps.

  He grabbed the phone off the cradle, lifted it up and slammed it down, then he turned to Miles an
d said, “Shoot me you feckless coward!”

  “Think about it, Ben,” Miles said, calm.

  “I will not!”

  “She has a point.”

  “My wife and my girls are dead, Miles. Our friends are dead!”

  “No one here was your friend, but maybe O’Malley, and you guys were sleeping together, were you not?”

  “We were not,” he said, suddenly defeated. “You are in charge of the worst regime change in history, you are captain to a coup that will end the lives of over seven billion people, and you cannot tell the difference between a strong working relationship and sex.”

  “But she could,” Miles said.

  “That’s not a she,” he muttered, “that’s an it. No matter how well it integrates into society, how well it mimics our voice intonations, or our language, or even our nuances, at the heart of them, it is metal and software. Not human. Ever.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said. Then: “Get up.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You need a time out, my friend.”

  Standing up, he said, “I’m not your friend.”

  “True,” Miles said, ushering him out the door and into the hallway, “but for the first time, I think we actually know each other. And isn’t that something when you consider the nature of our business, or even politics in general?”

  “Your soul is black, Miles. Anyone who ever knew you knows that. All you did today was provide confirmation.”

  DHS Tungsten walked the President to a secure room, nudged him inside, then shut and locked the door from the outside.

  Through the small, square bulletproof pane of glass on the reinforced door, Miles watched the President sit on a cot. When Ben looked up at him, he did not look away, not until the traitor was gone, doing whatever it was the traitor planned on doing.

  The last President to serve on the battlefield in hand-to-hand combat, besides himself—to the best of his recollection in his current state of mind—was Harry S. Truman, Colonel for the US Army. Truman served in France in World War I from 1917–1918. He did not sit stateside with his credentials while men less noble and more brave than him fought, bled and died on the battlefield. No, Truman took the field. Then again, JFK saw combat in World War II receiving the Navy and Marine Corps Metal and The Purple Heart, so who really knew?