Sampson's Legacy: The Post-Apocalyptic Sequel To Legacy Of Ashes (Earth's Ashes Book 2)

by Ric Beard

  “How about technology, governor? How about some of them glasses help you see in the dark? That would be fine for hunting, wouldn’t it? We could eat a lot more meat that way, without paying through the nose for it.”

  “Technology. SmartGlasses. I think those people you’re colluding with got inside your head, Jonesy, make you want what you don’t need. I’m trying to start with what’s logical, get people what they need.”

  “Oh, do they need headaches? Muscle twitching? Insomnia, Sampson?”

  The governor turned and raised his chin. “Bring them all out!” He yelled.

  The men filed out from behind Ruby and started walking toward the houses, calling for people to leave their dwellings and come into the street. For the most part, the people milled out into the sunlight without the men having to come to their doors. They filed into disjointed lines on either side of the street.

  Ruby’s eyes walked up and down the line, meeting the shocked, fearful eyes of the townspeople. She’d seen children like these prior to Sampson’s return to the MidEast, back when Horace ran his army down south with half the boys. Back then, they’d have been lucky to wear rags. With Sampson’s work parties restoring and building better infrastructure for cotton production, they now wore nicer. Some clothes hung unevenly, clasps not quite lined up right, but all in due time.

  “Shut up so the governor can talk!” One of the men on Ruby’s right barked, and a man fell into the street.

  The governor’s head shot to one side and, though Ruby couldn’t see his face from here, the expression on the soldier’s face indicated clearly enough that the boss was shooting him the eye. Lowering his head, the soldier stepped into the shadow of an overhang in front of one of the houses.

  Sampson took a few steps back and turned to face the crowd. “Ruby, please come take Lawkeeper Jones’s weapon belt.”

  Ruby stepped up to the man she knew as Jonesy, one of the few friends she’d made since coming north from the pit in which she’d lived before. When their eyes met, the corners of Jonesy’s mouth turned down slightly, and he diverted his gaze. Unlatching his belt, she pulled it away and slung it over her shoulder.

  Ruby whispered. “I wish you’d have run, Jonesy.”

  His eyes remained focused on the rocks underfoot. “Where has runnin’ ever gotten us?”

  Ruby nodded and stepped to the side, facing Sampson’s back.

  “Hello!” Sampson said. “It’s lovely to see your faces this morning.”

  Heads bobbed, chins looking to the earth along the entire row.

  “Since I returned to the place of my birth from OK City, we’ve made great strides together. In just over two years, we’ve managed to erect three lumber mills, a paper mill, and a textile plant. My vision for the Mideast is one that’s prosperous like the city, but devoid of its evils. The message I’ve carried across our towns and countryside is one of cooperation. Where there used to be chaos, we now live by laws. Where there used to be conscription, our sons now stay at home to contribute to our prosperity. It is truly my belief that we have a bright future in front of us because of your willingness to make life better for your children.

  “With this mutual goal in mind, you’ve provided long hours of labor, and my lawkeepers and I have provided you the protection to ensure no one takes advantage of you. My enforcement crews patrol the entire region, using the radio towers we’ve restored to communicate with the lawkeepers so that if you are raided, invaded, or come under attack by wild beasts, they can respond and protect you. Trucks come each morning to take you to the mills and bring you back. Together, we have built a working economy.

  “We have a currency that can be used in trade throughout the MidEast, and though we have not yet negotiated a solution for the acceptance of our currency with Blacksburg, I am optimistic that the people of that prosperous town will come to see that it is to their benefit that we work together.”

  Sampson stopped pacing and turned to face them. His head slowly swiveled from side to side, east to west, taking in the people.

  “Today, you aren’t working because no truck came to take you to work. This was my doing. It seemed to me that we needed to talk openly, to discuss our predicament as citizens, so that I can better understand your needs. Recent events have led me to understand that I have failed you.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Today, I aim to make that right.”

  Heads along the rows of people turned left and right as the townspeople turned to gaze at each other, uncertainty dressing their faces. Jonesy’s eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. Ruby gripped the lawkeeper’s weapon belt on her shoulder.

  “It’s my understanding that some of you are experiencing side effects from the powder I provide to help you work longer hours and make more money. Your health and well-being are very important to me, so I find this bit of news quite distressing.

  “You see, I allow my lawkeepers to oversee the administration of Jolt to each town to ensure that the substance isn’t abused.”

  Jones’s chin ticked up and his eyebrows raised. His lips parted, but no words came. He pressed them back together.

  “As we rode into town, I noticed some of you carrying bags on your shoulders as you ran back to your houses.” His head cocked to the side as he watched their responsive expressions. Ruby read the obvious emotions in those eyes and the slackened, defeated facial muscles of the crowd. “In that one observation, I see that I have a lot of work to do. Did you all think that I would bestow violence upon your town? Have I left the impression that I’m unjust?”

  He shrugged and held his shoulders high, his hands splayed to his sides, in question. No answer came.

  “I’d like to make a proposition, if I may,” Sampson said, lowering his hands. “I’m not going to send the trucks to pick you up for the next three days. Instead, I want you all to take a rest. Where is Lu Ann?”

  Heads shifted, postures changed as people looked up and down the aisle.

  Out stepped a middle-aged woman with obsidian hair, powdered with a touch of gray above her ears. She walked to Sampson with her doubled chin held high.

  “I’m Lu Ann.”

  Sampson turned to face her, and to Ruby’s surprise, a smile spread across the governor’s face.

  “Are you the woman who’s been running this recovery house about which I’ve been hearing?”

  Lu Ann’s chin was locked in place as she responded. “I am. Would do it all over again.”

  Surprising Ruby again, Sampson nodded slowly, but deeply.

  “Good!”

  Lu Ann jerked at the utterance as if she would take a step backward, but held her place.

  “This is the kind of initiative we need in the MidEast.” Sampson turned his head to gaze up and down the faces of the disjointed line of confused townspeople. “One of our citizens saw a problem and took a proactive approach to solving it! I commend her, and I encourage her to continue this good work.”

  “Really?” Lu Ann spat. The tight expression of her face indicated her surprise.

  Sampson turned to face her and clapped both her shoulders. Lu Ann jumped.

  “Absolutely. I insist. My only regret is you haven’t been paid for your work. So going forward, I will see to it you are justly rewarded for your efforts to provide comfort to your townspeople.”

  Ruby felt a smile creep across her face and choked back a tear.

  “Then why did you take the people who taught me how?” Lu Ann asked, her nose raised in a sneer that Ruby saw as a reflection of the woman’s bravery.

  Sampson released her shoulders. “This is what I mean about misunderstandings. I ordered this Jenna woman and her cohorts taken under cover of night lest violence ensue—which it did, mind you—and our citizens get caught in the crossfire.” Sampson took two steps back, as if to take in the whole crowd as he spoke. “It saddens me to inform you all that you’ve been duped.” He held up a hand to suppress Lu Ann’s response. “This Jenna woman and her collabora
tors are not who you think they are. No, not at all! Their interests don’t align with yours. You all have heard of the lawkeeper murdered so brutally in John’s Corner under cover of night?”

  Heads nodded up and down the rows.

  “Right, of course you have. That kind of word travels. Well, these Black Ghosts who murdered the lawkeeper and commandeered the Ellison farm in the South have friends.”

  “You’re not trying to sell me that Jenna is working with the Ghosts,” Lawkeeper Jones said.

  Sampson’s head swung around and the sneer crossing his face caused Lu Ann to step back.

  “You would do well not to talk, Mister Jones. You have done quite enough damage. Ruby, Lawkeeper Jones is being reassigned. Put him on the truck.”

  “Reassigned?” Lu Ann asked. “What are you—”

  Sampson held up a gentle hand. “No harm will come to Lawkeeper Jones. You needn’t worry yourselves. I’m not an animal. He and I are going to talk and discuss everything that has transpired. That’s all. He will be allowed to work like the rest of you, but his career as a lawkeeper must rightfully end. He has misjudged and put you all at risk, and I can’t allow that.” He turned his head again. “Ruby, put the lawkeeper on the truck.”

  Ruby grasped Jonesy’s arm and led him slowly away. As she walked, she continued to listen.

  “The people who’ve been helping you are spies for the Black Ghosts. I believe they were training you to use their special weapons so that you would rise up against your own people. Rise up against me. If they convinced you I didn’t have your best interests at heart, they could take control of the MidEast and use the products we create to trade with the cities for their own gain.”

  As they approached the truck, the breeze carried Sampson’s voice away from Ruby, so she couldn’t hear him anymore.

  “You don’t believe him, do you?” Jonesy asked.

  “Don’t you?” Ruby asked.

  “He killed his own guy after Churchill, Ruby.”

  The voice rang out in her head again. He set me up!

  She shook her head furiously. “A guy who murdered a family and set his dog on them. What would you have done?”

  Jonesy shook his head at the ground and frowned. “The question you should ask yourself is, ‘what would you have done?’”

  A crackle pierced the air and Ruby jerked. Reaching for the radio on the hip opposite her instrument of death, she clicked the button.

  “Go.”

  “Ruby? Hey, it’s Wells. We got a real bad problem down here in Winchester.”

  “Winchester?”

  “It’s that ghost town. The one with the water tower on the wood platform.”

  “Okay, what’s the problem?”

  “All the men are dead, Ruby. They’re all dead.”

  Ruby swung around to look down the road at Sampson, who was gesturing at a large man with a shotgun resting on his shoulder. The town’s new lawkeeper.

  Chapter Fourteen

  FEISTY

  14

  Judging from the slight shock to her knees when dropping through the little slit at the top, Jenna estimated the glass case reached about fifteen feet high. Three perfect circles were cut into the glass at even intervals on two sides near the top. Above them, rubber stoppers adhered to glass backings on hinges. Outside the case, an old-fashioned water heater rested in one corner. Crusted rivers of rust crept down its outer, metal shell, but the green light blinking on a small panel near the bottom seemed to indicate operation.

  Her nose ticked up at a scent and she scanned the rest of the room. A mop bucket with murky water sitting in the corner sent a stench through the room regardless of the glass walls separating her from it.

  The glass didn’t vibrate in the least as she slammed the meaty side of her fist against it, but she managed to get someone’s attention because, by the time she rapped for the fourth or fifth time, the wheel in the center of the metal door farthest from her glass cage squeaked and then spun. The door swung open with a bellowing groan on its thick hinges, and a clean-shaven man appeared in the doorway, peering at her from beneath relaxed eyelids with a hand shoved in the pocket of forest green pants that bagged on the bottom before tucking into black boots. Up top, he wore an honest-to-god hoodie. She hadn’t seen one of those in—

  “Sorry about the rough stuff,” the man said. “My guys tend to get a little bottled up.” His crooked smile revealed rotting teeth the color of a dehydrated lemon peel.

  Tweaker. Of all the people in the world to be captured by, I get a jolter.

  Jenna sat on a glass bench built into the back wall of the case and crossed her legs, wrapping her hands around her knee.

  “You in charge around here?”

  The man scratched the gray skin of what would otherwise make for a heavy beard.

  “Sampson’s in charge, but yes, this is my unit.”

  His posture carried the unmistakable demeanor of a confident man who’d been in this situation too many times to count. Jenna eyed his relaxed shoulders, the single hand shoved into his pocket as the other one lazily expressed his words with the occasional twirling of his fingers and flip of the palm. This was definitely his place, and her position on the wrong side of the glass was the kind of disadvantage she needed to equalize.

  “I have to say, you guys look a lot cleaner than the assholes we wiped out at Triangle City a couple years ago. Quite the transition.”

  “The Chain was a roughneck bunch o’ marauders led by a man with no vision.”

  “And you have vision?”

  “You said it yourself. I don’t look like Chain material.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “My men are soldiers. They keep their noses clean ’n are rewarded accordingly. They follow my orders without delay.”

  “Or what, you tie them to poles?”

  A moment of silence passed as he took two steps deeper into the room.

  “I don’t tie men to poles.”

  “What do you do with the ones who disobey?”

  “Don’t have any.”

  “Not one?”

  The man smiled widely enough that Jenna could make out a gap between two rotting teeth near the back.

  “But enough about me. Who exactly are you?”

  “My name is Jenna.”

  “Just Jenna?”

  “As far as you’re concerned.”

  “Oooh, feisty.” He showed the whole smile again. “I like feisty. Why are you here, Jenna?”

  “We were helping the people in Ripley until Sampson’s spy boy and his thugs came along.”

  Her captor nodded slowly as he crossed the room to the nasty mop bucket and raised a folding metal chair with rusty legs over metal boxes and set it down. The lack of rubber covers on its bottom caused its friction with the concrete below to emit an annoying screech. Jenna didn’t allow it to faze her.

  “So, you’re here to help?”

  “My group’s interests lay with the interests of the region.”

  “Who is this group you speak of?”

  “We live in the mountains to the east.”

  “Ha!” He bellowed laughter. “Mountain people? Really?”

  Jenna maintained an even facial expression.

  “Well, I don’t think we need your help. I assure you, Sampson has everything under control.”

  “Killing farm families because they won’t give you their crops is what you call under control?”

  He laughed again. “Let me tell you something about leading.”

  Oh yes, please shine your wisdom down upon me.

  “When you let people have an inch, you might as well give ‘em a foot! People are greedy.” He dragged out the first vowel sound of greedy and it hummed through his nose. “You give people so much as a gap of light in the darkness, and they’ll take the sunshine from ya. Sampson sees that.”

  “What do the farmers get for their trouble when they cooperate?”

  “Protection.”

  A protec
tion scheme. How adorably old world.

  “I see.”

  The man slapped his legs and stood up. “I like to cut to the chase Jenna. So tell me true. Who are you, who are your people, and what do you want from us?”

  Right. ‘Cut to the chase.’ Who are you trying to kid? You get off on this shit.

  “I already told you. We just want to see the suffering stop.”

  “Well, I don’t see how the suffering of others is any of your business. Fact is, people are free to do whatever they want—as long as they’re willing to pay the tax when the time comes.” He folded the chair and set it back in the corner. He stopped at the door with his back to her and turned to talk over his shoulder in a low voice. “How many you got?”

  “What’s that? How many?”

  “You say you have a group. How many?”

  Jenna took a second to think about it but knew it was a second too long before she parted her lips to speak.

  “A few thousand.”

  The man laughed. “Right.” He dragged out the vowel. “A few thousand.” The metal door slammed behind him.

  Minutes later, the lights flickered in the room. The flickering continued for a few minutes at odd intervals, the interruptions growing longer between each iteration. Jenna mused that they either had solar issues, or their wind turbines weren’t very well-maintained.

  Her eyes crossed the surfaces of the glass walls, and she noted a white film of some kind. She scraped a fingernail against the film closest to her head and turned it to look. Nothing came away. Standing and placing her hands on her hips, she walked in a slow circle, measuring the width with her steps as she considered the film.

  Her eyes jumped to the walls across the room, on the other side of the glass. She traced the debris along the furthest wall, into which the watertight door was set until she found it. A spigot with a flower-shaped handle. Her eyes flicked back to the film.

  It’s a water line. Shit. I’m in an aquarium.

  Chapter Fifteen

  DON'T PANIC

  15

  As Lexi released her ankles and straightened, she stared at the woman in black as she did some stretching of her own. A memory crept into her mind of a shadowy figure in Triangle City, standing in a breezeway across from the building she’d lived in.