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

by Ric Beard

  He was talking again, the sound of his voice prickling at her nerves.

  “The fat ones? Shit, they die quick. Thirty seconds without air and a fat guy—” he flattened his hand with the palm facing the floor and cut sideways through the air, “—fades away.” The hand slapped the side of his leg as he dropped it. “But you, well, I figure you’re about as chiseled as any woman I’ve seen. Not in that bulky way—no! Not at all! You’re still girly. Like you do it on purpose.”

  Jenna spoke her first word, back from the void.

  “Pig.”

  Fwap!—the man on the ladder flipped up the glass cover that had filled the air hole at the top of the tank.

  Swivel—as he twisted the hook against the glass and…

  Click!—as he snapped the hook into place, locking the cover above.

  Metal screeched on tile as he dragged the ladder around the cube. “Name calling? I don’t think that’s really necessary. Do you? It’s not like I let you die.”

  Aligning the ladder with the center of the long, front glass wall, he plopped his bony ass on the top rung. Smoke rose from a hand-rolled cigarette clinched between two fingers.

  I knew that smell was familiar.

  “I could have, ya know,” he said. The orange ember burned bright as he drew from the butt.

  Jenna threw him a death gaze, wishing she could shoot lasers through the glass and melt his stupid face. Instead, she applied the anger to her words.

  “But that would ruin your fun, wouldn’t it?”

  Of all the dangers out in the badlands and the rest of the rotting world, I end up in a glass box with a by-god psychopath. Look at that smug, upturned nose. I could totally take him.

  “Hell, when your friend died, he went through a lot worse. Your death would’ve been quiet in comparison.”

  Scruff.

  With the image of her friend’s curly, hair-covered face, came a realization.

  He’s trying to goad you into a response, keep you off-kilter. It worked the first time. Don’t give him the pleasure.

  Grief would come later, but showing a psycho her emotions would just feed his hunger to stretch the abuse further. Jenna had studied psychology years ago, but her experience in the wake of the old world, the evil she’d seen in those who struggled to supply their own needs at the deadly detriment of others, made the mental disorders studied against the back drop of a civilized society seem tame.

  This guy would devour any display of emotion, get high on it, then push the envelope to get more and more. When he’d finally gotten his fill, he’d get bored with her and close those flaps for good.

  No, no no no no no. If he closes those flaps for good, Scruff died for nothing.

  Jenna changed tactics and let the image of Scruff’s face return, forcing deep breaths into her lungs and converting sadness into resolve while keeping her expression stony.

  I need to play the game my way. Not his.

  After a few heartbeats of silence, the man confirmed Jenna’s suspicions about him. “Yup. He just stood there trying to take it like a man and well…a man can only take so much. Even a big’un like him.”

  But there was a flicker in his expression, just then. A twitch of his eyelid. What was that? Was it…

  A tell. A break in his poker face. He’s lying about something. Jenna felt a moment of elation as her hands trembled.

  Is Scruff even dead? I’ll bet he’s not! But she couldn’t know, in spite of the sudden glimmer of hope. Think! Get into the game! Play on his level.

  Jenna raised one side of her lips and rolled onto her side, facing her captor.

  “Did you get to see the light go out in his eyes?”

  His head jerked up from the cigarette. His cheeks slackened, his forehead wrinkled, and he squinted.

  “Hm?” His eyes widened as her meaning dawned on him. “The light go…”

  “What are you, deaf?” Jenna asked, refusing him the time to process it. “Did you get to see that final flicker of life? The death rattle? Oh, that’s right, you said Ray told you what happened. You weren’t even there.”

  Pushing out his lips, he pushed off the ladder and thumped his cigarette onto the floor. Stomping it out with the sole of his boot and twisting, he moved closer to peer through the glass.

  He’d missed it. That little flicker between life and death she’d seen hundreds of times before. The final, violent quaking of the body as its systems halted as light became a pinhole and snapped out like someone flipped a switch. Though it nauseated her to use Scruff’s death in this way, he would’ve understood…if he was dead at all.

  Jenna rolled into a sitting position, fighting off a moment of vertigo as her inner ear adjusted and her equilibrium returned. An involuntary eye roll caused the room to rock a final time before she stabilized.

  “Death rattle, huh?”

  Jenna forced one side of her mouth to turn upward just a tick. “Oh, come on. You know perfectly well what I mean. The last little convulsion.” She shook her arms and legs for half a breath and relaxed. “If you’re watching their eyes, you can see them go dark…right as they still.”

  To add the final touch, she shivered and raised her arms in a V, allowing her chest to rise, just right.

  There was no mistaking his expression as he steadily gazed at her.

  You’ve got him. Keep it up.

  The man stood as still as a cactus, a sullen expression plastered to his face.

  But then the moment passed as he turned without speaking and walked to the opposite wall, next to the watertight door.

  “You ready to talk about who’s killing lawkeepers?”

  “Jenna stood and threw her arms out to the side. “How am I supposed to talk about that? I don’t know anything about it except the same rumors everyone else in Ripley has heard via those stupid radio towers.”

  “Mm hmm. I see.”

  “Seriously, dude. I have no idea. I haven’t killed anyone here.”

  “Not here, huh? You’ve killed other people though? The men of the MidEast who served Horace?”

  Jenna didn’t answer.

  “Last chance, Jenna. Speak up or swim. You know how to swim?”

  Swim?

  “No?”

  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” She plopped back down on the bench. “Do your best, I guess.”

  “Fair enough. I think it’s time for a little endurance test.” The twin metal doors of a rusted metal cabinet in the corner creaked open, and he removed a length of black hose. Unwinding it with practiced twists and yanks, he dragged one end to the edge of the cell. Positioning the ladder under one of the air holes in the top, he dragged the hose over his shoulder and climbed the rungs.

  Jenna felt a chill shudder the nerves in her spine and neck.

  Shit. Okay, you don’t have him.

  He fed the hose through the center of three air holes on the right, just enough to balance it over the lip of the circular gap. Lowering his hands to his hips as his legs leaned against the ladder, he studied the hose for an extended moment.

  Oh, just look at this psycho, dragging it out.

  Giving a satisfied nod, he jumped down and dragged the other end of the thick hose into the hallway. Jenna heard a few low metal screeches at the sound of water flowing through pipes inside the walls. Then the hose jerked as the man jogged back into the room, skipped two rungs as he ascended the ladder, and held the hose to keep it from toppling back out the hole and spilling water on the floor outside the cell.

  Water spat past the metal threads at the end of the hose and splashed on the smooth floor of the cell. Jenna sighed as it crept across the floor, spreading out in a transparent pool.

  “Hope you know how to swim, mountain girl.”

  The mother fucker dropped down from the ladder, evidently satisfied he’d balanced the hose out of her reach, and nodded again. A long finger pointed at her end of the hose.

  “Don’t get to thinking crazy thoughts about using the holes to hold yourself up
instead of floating, either. Like my daddy always said, ‘hope is not a strategy.’ It wouldn’t be right for me to give you false hope just to go and drown ya, right? Nope. We ain’t filling it that high. So if you want to prepare yourself, better get snapping. It fills up faster ’n you’d think.” Folding the ladder and crossing to the door, he turned back. “The last guy had to jump for an hour before his muscles just wouldn’t take it anymore.”

  She presumed by the fact he didn’t fully close the airtight door, that he hadn’t wanted to put a kink in the hose. Jenna scanned the inner creases where the sides of the glass met one another in search of some structural lack of integrity. But she knew there was none. She’d searched when he closed the air holes and nearly killed her the day before.

  No, that was just a few minutes ago. Why does it seem like it had happened yesterday?

  She answered herself aloud in a mutter. “Because I was on the precipice of death.”

  Cold water dragged her out of her thoughts as it seeped into her socks and the cold slithered between her toes. Now that Jenna knew his plan, the cloudy film on the glass about eight feet off the floor made sense.

  The water soaked her foot halfway up to her ankles.

  I feel like Batman in one of those stupid reruns I watched as a kid. How you gonna get out of this one, Caped Crusader?

  It seemed like only seconds had passed by the time the water reached her shins.

  I’ll get hypothermia. I need to keep my body temperature up, or I’m going to die in this cube.

  Jenna slammed the side of her fist into the glass. It still didn’t so much as rattle. It had to be a half-a-foot thick. Fleeting thoughts about what it might have been used for in the old days danced briefly through her mind, but then the water crept higher, to the back of her knees, prompting a furious shiver. Her eyes flickered to the corners of the room, looking for a camera.

  No way this dude could resist watching. No way.

  But she didn’t see any. A circular window cut into the wall like a porthole next to the rusted cabinet revealed no spying face, so she didn’t think he was watching from there.

  He’ll wait until it fills and then come watch. Lunatic has probably done this enough times to have the timing down.

  It wasn’t long before the shivers transitioned from short intervals of discomfort to perpetual annoyances accompanied by a constant chattering of her teeth. Nervous fingers tapped the bench on either side of her body, and her busy eyes glanced from corner to corner and top edge to bottom edge of the cage. Water would fill past the bench height and soak her soon, but she still pulled up her feet and sat cross-legged. The surface of the water shimmered against the overhead lights as it rose, and Jenna felt her heart thumping at her ribs as she accepted that she would soon have to tread frigid water if she wanted to live.

  He wasn’t going to leave her for a few seconds this time. This was going to be the real deal, and if she wanted to have any chance of walking out of here—slim, though any chance might be—she had to get her head in the game.

  Think dammit! You have to—

  Then it came to her.

  Lexi!

  After a final trace of every tight line where the sides and the top of the glass cell met each other, Jenna relented and started sliding off her socks. Then she turned sideways on the bench long enough to wiggle out of her pants. Gratitude for the tank she wore beneath, she pulled her outer shirt off and dropped it on the bench next to her.

  The water crept to its edge.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  WHAT'S WITH THE FANCY GLASSES?

  29

  Judging from the complete lack of mobility in Nina’s right wrist, the patchy-bearded moron hadn’t tied many people to chairs.

  That’s comforting.

  The experiment involving the complete immobilization of her extremities had required a full ten minutes, according to the time stamp on her SmartGlass lens. Pacing around the chair, he’d tugged at ropes intermittently—either to make sure they were taut—or to ensure my circulation is completely cut off—and stepped back in front of her to admire his handiwork.

  Nina gave her head the slightest of shakes. “I think you got me, chief.”

  His utter bafflement at her NuBionic prosthetic arm would’ve been amusing if not for the fact her real hand was going to turn purple at any moment. Nina hadn’t been feeling accommodating as she’d studied his perplexity over the prosthetic, and he was left to figure it out on his own, seemingly limited capacity. So he’d tied it to her side and wrapped the rope over her lap and under the chair until it was immobilized against her leg.

  I should’ve just clocked him while I had the chance. Stupid empathy will get you every time. Lucian would be good and pissed at me.

  “It’s not like I want to do this—tie you up and keep you here.”

  “Mm hm. Then why are you doing it?”

  “Because I gotta feed my family. The enforcers will trade for you, and I only have a couple months’ worth of food left. That’s if we ration. When they come to steal our preserves, maybe they’ll take you instead.”

  “And take food from other farmers, instead. Man, you’re a real humanitarian.”

  “Humanitarian?”

  Ugh.

  She’d still been groggy when he’d dragged her past the two, exterior wooden hatches leading under the house, but now that she’d gained her senses, the interior looked ill-equipped to hold months’ worth of food inside. His preserves were probably in the basement.

  Maybe you should be focusing on how to get out of here without killing him.

  “I’m sorry, but my wife and daughter gotta eat.” One shoulder ticked up in a half-shrug. “It’s the way of the world.”

  Sure. A good man feeds his family, even if it means kidnapping and whoring out a perfect stranger.

  Nina forced a sideways smile onto her lips. “I empathize with your plight.”

  “Huh?”

  Nina leaned against the high back of the wooden chair. He tightened a rope to compensate, making her wish she’d have thought of that.

  “I understand you have to feed your family, but did you ever think maybe we could work something out?”

  “How would we do that?”

  “From what I know of the MidEast, there seems to be a market for technology. You could trade my Tab for food.”

  “Where is it?”

  “You tell me.” She flipped her chin down and eyed her empty, magnetic holster. “It was right there.”

  “Oh, the handheld thingy. I crushed that.”

  “You—!”

  He tapped his head with his temple. “I hear people can find you with that.”

  So he knows about trackers on handhelds, but words are a mystery to him. I will never understand this world.

  Her eyes flicked to the door behind him, through which the sun was beaming.

  “My rifle out there, that’s probably worth money.”

  “And I guess you would’ve just given that to me if I’d asked?”

  “Well, no, but now that you seem to be in charge of the situation…” Since her head was the only thing she could move in her mummified-by-rope situation, she gestured with it.

  “Sorry, but I don’t know you. They’re my family.”

  “In that case, my name is Nina. I’d shake your hand but…”

  “I don’t want to know your name.”

  That’s why I told you.

  “You know it’s wrong to kidnap people, right?”

  As the farmer stepped toward the kitchen counter, Nina spied a knife block with black and brown handles protruding from it like pushpin heads. When he stepped in front of it, she heard a metal whisking sound. He turned back to her wielding a thick antique knife,

  “I could make this bad for you.” He raised the knifepoint to the tip of her nose. His hand shook violently, and Nina was sure the farmer would cut her. His voice rattled in his throat as he spoke. “I could just end your misery now, bitch.” The last word came w
ith the shaky lack of confidence she’d seen uncountable times in interrogation rooms in Triangle City. “I don’t need lessons from the likes of you.”

  “Who are you trying to game?” Nina asked. “Sure, you can cut me, but are your ‘enforcers’ gonna want me then?”

  As chief investigator for Triangle Security Services, she’d been known by her fellow officers and her superiors as having a kind of special sight for details. Though they’d never said such a thing to her face, she’d heard whispers calling her “Third Eye” in the early days of the gig. SmartGlass ear buds were a wonderful surveillance tool.

  During her final case in the city, she’d stitched together clues that led her to a climate control unit containing a murder suspect avoiding prosecution. Though it wasn’t a fact she readily shared, her attention to details was born of a compulsive disorder she’d spent years mastering. When her subconscious absorbed facts that her conscious mind had missed, she got what was best described as a brain itch. A bastard of an affliction that forced her to focus, it often had kept her awake at night. But in the time since she left the force and the city, the itch had not come a single time. Its absence had been cause for quiet rejoicing at the compound, but now, sitting in the kitchen of a beaten-down farmhouse far from the safety of what had once been her apartment in Triangle City, the itch returned.

  “Judging from these ropes, you’re either trying to mummify me or you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. I mean, seriously, I can’t feel my right hand.”

  If she was back in Triangle City conducting an interrogation, she might have allowed the jerk to drone on until she had words to twist, to lure him into self-incrimination. This wasn’t an interrogation and she had to find a way to talk herself out of the chair.

  It wasn’t her right hand on which he focused. “What’s that?” He pointed with the tip of the blade.

  “It’s a prosthetic.”

  “What’s that?” he repeated.

  “I was born with a deformed lower arm. They cut off the useless part and now I wear a prosthetic.”