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

by Ric Beard

  “Then they came looking to take you for payment,” the woman with the curved blade said.

  Lacey nodded her head.

  “So I guess Lacey isn’t safe here, anymore.”

  The black hat bobbed up and down in agreement.

  “What should we do with her?”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Lacey said. “She dropped to her knees.”

  “Lacey, we’re here to help you. We didn’t plan it that way, but here you were.” The black mask ticked up to thrust its chin at the Black Ghost. “I could take her, but not now.”

  “Maybe Lucinda can protect her.”

  “Proctor?” Britt said.

  The woman in the black mask sighed, and her lips pursed clearly from the hole in her mask as her eyes turned on the shorter figure in black.

  “Oops.”

  “No!” Britt said. “It’s a good idea. If Proctor really can take her, you should take her there. Oh, god, I’m sorry Lacey. Yes. You should go with them!”

  Lacey scowled, but then her face softened and she nodded. “It’s true, though,” Lacey said. “They’d have killed Lawkeeper Marbury.”

  The demon’s hat and the pull-over mask jerked toward Britt at the same time.

  “lawkeeper?” the grunting voice from the short devil said.

  “You’re one of Sampson’s,” the woman in the mask said. She stepped forward, and Britt felt a warm shiver erupt in his chest as he imagined the long blade entering his gut. “Sounds like you made a bad deal with some bad men, lawkeeper. Well, I think it’s time we send a message to Mister De Le Court. What do you think, my Black Ghost?”

  The Black Ghost chuckled and nodded enthusiastically as horror surged through Britt’s veins.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I HATE THE WORLD

  41

  The cart lost its charge at midnight and left her stranded out on the cracked asphalt highway under a clear sky, surrounded by a cold wind that seemed to blow at her from every direction.

  I hate the world. I want to go back to the compound. Maybe they’d let me take up cooking. I always loved cooking. Just never had time.

  Without cold weather gear, she’d freeze if she waited through the night for the solar to charge the batteries again. The only legible letters on the old-world highway sign indicated she was moving south. Although Jenna had explained to Nina that the words on such signs didn’t indicate the actual direction, her star map above seemed to agree she was moving mostly south, maybe a tick to the east.

  Rounding a bend surrounded on both sides by low ridges, Nina detected a dim light in the distance when her SmartGlasses adjusted a slight bit. She squinted into the night, though it was daylight with her glasses, and located the source of light that caused the adjustment on her glasses. A truck was coming!

  After taking a couple steps toward the road, thinking she would flag down whoever it was, she came to her senses.

  Those could be enforcers! Who else would it be?

  Nina shot a look over her shoulder in the opposite direction.

  The cart’s a long way off, so they won’t track me by that. I’ve gotta hide.

  Climbing the higher ridge on the left and descending the other side about halfway, she took a knee. Dim lights glowed on the other side of a wide valley covered in grass with maples and hickories dispersed about. Resting on her knee, she zoomed in with her SmartGlasses.

  A town. I would’ve totally missed that if I’d stayed on the road.

  It was barely a town at all from what she could see. Small structures divided into two rows by a dirt road not even half a mile long that ran up the middle. The light probably emitted from oil lanterns, judging by its dim reflections in the windows. Light meant people.

  Do I go down there? What if they’re on the wrong side?

  The truck engine was audible now. Nina turned an ear toward the ridge and listened as it approached. The engine’s echo roared off the rocky surfaces. After it had passed, Nina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and stood.

  All this shit, and she still needed to go find Jenna. Where the hell was Lucian?

  I fucking hate the world.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I HOPE IT HURT

  42

  Friday

  January 23rd, 2139

  The homestead was the only place he could see for miles. Acres of plowed-over earth on all sides crept up to the whitewashed farmhouse. Lucian’s optical zoom allowed him to see the girl rocking back and forth on the farmhouse porch long before he stepped past the two worn, unpainted basement doors, but he’d mistaken the wash of brown stains across her dress for mud until he approached the porch.

  Her eyes were locked onto the worn two-by-fours of the porch’s floor. A small spade stabbed into the wood, raised up like it was attached to a robotic arm, and stabbed down again. Nothing indicated that she was aware of Lucian’s presence as he approached, but he yanked the pulse rifle, fashioned by and for his own hands, off his back to have it at the ready. Her other hand rubbed in a circle at her belly.

  Something is seriously wrong with this one.

  Beyond her, in the side yard, a piling of fresh earth into a long hump caused his heart to thump in fear.

  The screen door’s hinges gave a long, furious squeak as it crept open, and a shirtless man of about Lucian’s height with a nasty cut in the side of his head stepped gingerly onto the rickety porch, shooting a quick glance at the woman as he eased the door carefully closed.He held a finger to his lips, shot a glance at the woman sitting at the far corner of the porch, and jerked his head to the left. Lucian stayed at ground level as he matched the man’s pace up on the porch until they wrapped around the east side of the house.

  “You a friend of Nina’s?” The man grumbled.

  “Yes, is she here?”

  “Naw, but she was here, and I rue the day I ever let that woman in my house.”

  “What the hell happened here?”

  “Your friend killed my wife and set my daughter over there in a bad way, mister. If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon you left us in peace. If Twyla comes out of her spell and realizes you’re here, she’s gonna come at you.”

  So, not Nina’s grave. Relief washed over him.

  Lucian pictured the lone bike at the intersection of a dirt road southeast of here. Though he stared into the man’s tired, unsteady eyes, he saw Nina’s helmet upside down on the gravelly surface. An image of the arrow drawn into the bricks was next. Lucian looked down at the man’s work boots and pictured the heel coming down on Nina’s Tab, cracking the surface and leaving behind a white, powdery spider’s web.

  “Can I ask you a question before I go?” he stepped close to the railing of the porch.

  “Be quick about it, mister.”

  He slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s shin. He doubled over as he slammed back into the wall and slid down to his backside. Even in distress as he gripped the shin with both hands and rocked, he peered to the opposite end of the porch, pressing his lips together to hold in his grunts.

  Lucian leveled his weapon. “Do I look like I give a fuck? My friend didn’t come here, you brought her here. I found her bike, her helmet, and the device you crushed underfoot, so I couldn’t track her.” He shook the rifle again. “If your wife is dead, then I’d say you fucked things up good. Now, you tell me where she is, or I’ll kill you sitting right there, walk around to the other side of the house, and put a hole in your daughter’s belly.”

  The man held up both hands. “She took my cart and drove off. I don’t know which way. I was half out of it. She knocked me one good.”

  “Good. I hope it hurt.”

  “I don’t know which way, mister. I don’t know.”

  Lucian lowered the weapon, looked around at all the farmland and stamped a foot in the knee-high grass near the porch. His eyes traced the drive leading off the property in two directions, but it was no good. There’d been no rain, nothing to mark her path
as she drove off.

  “What kind of fuel does your cart use?”

  “It’s electric. Goes for about three hours on a full charge.”

  “How high was it charged?”

  “I didn’t plug it in when I brought her back. Couldn’t be half.”

  So an hour in any direction. Shit.

  A passing thought about the relative positioning application on his Tab led him down another path. Sampson had installed outposts at old world radio towers that had survived the fall and hundreds of years of weather. The towers were manned to relay messages.

  “Does your cart have a radio on it? One you can talk into?”

  “No, but I’ve got one inside.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit!

  “The one on the cart is receive-only.”

  Lucian’s head swung around. If he hadn’t wanted to kill the man, he might have hugged him.

  His hip buzzed, and his chin jerked down. Grabbing at his Tab and nearly fumbling it to the ground, he recovered and checked the display. His eyes widened, and a smile crept across his face. First, word that Nina was attached to a radio, and now this. The text on the screen read:

  Tracker signal acquired: J. Clarke.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ITERATE AND OPTIMIZE

  43

  The man in the strange getup was someone Ruby only knew by name, but Sampson’s description of the short, dark-skinned man with the clean-cut, smooth skin and delicate hands had been so spot-on she felt like she’d met him before. The handshake the shorter man had offered was like gripping a limp fish, and the smooth tone of his voice rubbed Ruby the wrong way.

  “We had a mishap during the exchange, but I suppose you’ve heard by now.”

  Sampson nodded from his oversized chair while Ruby leaned on the bookshelf behind him, taking up Bradshaw’s usual spot now that Sampson had given her the Northern Territory.

  “Thank you for arranging to bring the survivor back, Carson,” Sampson said. “It’s unfortunate the drugs couldn’t be recovered.”

  “Yeah,” Carson said, leaning back on the sofa near the front window and crossing one leg over the other. He lay one arm across the back cushions as his head nodded slowly up and down. “Unfortunate that someone saw fit to intrude on our business.”

  “I imagine Ms. Bingham is displeased.”

  Ruby looked across the room and out the window to where the men in body armor stood next to their strange, low riding vehicles with hoods that slanted down, almost to the ground. A sidearm dangling from each holster and a rifle slung over each shoulder was what Ruby would interpret as a show of force. Though Carson didn’t try to bring any of them in, she had little doubt they were on alert should things here go sideways.

  “Alexandra is quite unhappy.”

  Carson was still wearing that half-smile that seemed to perpetually mask his face.

  He’s a swindler. All smooth with no substance. Ruby passed her eyes across the large duffel sitting on the floor by the door.

  Men like Carson had moseyed in and out of the room she’d kept in Bridgeport on a few rare occasions, and each of them had been the same—gentle on the outside, violent and dominating when the doors slammed shut.

  “Although you’re absolutely welcome here, Carson,” Sampson said, “I assume you had business you wanted to discuss. Perhaps related to this little hijacking?”

  Little hijacking, that’s a laugh. He’s so pissed off right now I’m surprised he isn’t ripping books off the shelf behind me and slinging them across the room. Such a good leader, keeping his temper constantly in check, like that.

  How Carson spoke as confidently as he did while displaying the top row of his perfectly white teeth, she didn’t know.

  “The hijacker was a former business associate of mine,” Carson said.

  Sampson’s head swiveled in a jerk and, though she stood behind him and to one side, she imagined the shifty look in his eyes trained on Carson.

  Ruby cleared her throat.

  Sampson flipped a lock of golden hair over his shoulder and raised his chin.

  “You have something to contribute, Ruby?”

  Carson’s expression faltered for a moment as he set his gaze on her.

  “I haven’t heard anything about the money. You say he ripped us off, but you haven’t said what became of the money.”

  The smile was back in full force, and Ruby thought if Carson had better-gauged who he was in a room with, perhaps he’d stick that smile down his throat where it belonged. Sampson’s mean streak was rare enough, but if he decided to let it loose in this room, on this day, Carson would likely be wrecked by the time his men made it to the door.

  “We recovered the money, actually,” Carson said. “It’s in the bag I brought with me.” He indicated the duffel with a pivot of his chin.

  “So you’re returning it to me.”

  Carson shrugged. “Yes.”

  No wonder he was smiling. Sampson didn’t lose anything, except the use of the drugs. It was a perfectly salvageable situation.

  “Does that satisfy your reservations, Ruby?” Sampson asked.

  “Just because he brought the money doesn’t mean he wants nothing from us, Mister De Le Court. I think Mister Carson came toting a proposition.” She lowered her tone. “Men like him always do.”

  Sampson chuckled. “My Ruby,” he said to Carson. “Always suspicious.” Sampson stood, turned, and walked to the bookcase. He began straightening the books as he spoke. “But she’s usually right. People always carry their own motives. So, tell me, Mister Carson, how can I help you?”

  He gripped one of the tomes from the shelf, rubbing its smooth cover with each thumb. Ruby read the title. Ninjutsu: The Dark Arts. Her face twisted into a half-smile as she heard Sampson’s words in her mind.

  Know thy enemy.

  She didn’t know exactly what Ninjutsu was, but had an inkling his study of it would be related to the Black Ghosts who traipsed about in their black at night, killing Sampson’s lawkeepers and causing shivers in the townspeople.

  “As I said, I used to do business with the man who stole our drugs. Alexandra has sent the men outside with me to acquire and return him to her, breathing.”

  “I see. What does this have to do with me?” Sampson asked.

  “Not much. I was just hoping you might put word out to your men via your radio system that they shouldn’t attack that truck, should they come upon it. I was hoping you might even contact us if you hear about sightings so that we can take it from there. You could even get the drugs back.”

  “What is this man’s name?”

  “Sean Stone.”

  “A catchy name, is it his real one?”

  “No. I don’t know his real one.”

  “It’s of no consequence, but it’s nice to know what to call someone.” He slid the book in an open slot on the shelf and turned. “I’ll happily relay the information to you should my men come across him. If we retrieve the drugs, of course, I will pay for the shipment from the money you’ve brought with you.”

  “Actually,” Carson said. “Miss Bingham would be honored if you’d keep the money for the inconvenience. She hopes that we can continue doing business together, once this problem has been dealt with.”

  Ruby cleared her throat. “Could you describe this man you’re hunting?”

  Carson’s eyes peered at her, jumped to Sampson, and then back. “Um, sure. He’s just over six feet. Dark hair. Closely trimmed beard.”

  Ruby nodded. “Sounds like a boy pulled off a pole down south, recently.”

  Sampson adjusted in his seat. “Which means he’s associated with the Ghosts. Good to know.”

  Carson shook Sampson’s hand and then hers. It seemed somehow colder, almost wet. He stopped at the door and turned back, the morning light behind him shading his face. “If we get to him first and he has these Ghosts with him, would you like us to hold them for you?”

  It was Sampson’s turn to show some teeth. “I would appreciate
that greatly, Carson. Thank you for your consideration.”

  Carson bowed slightly, causing a ripple in the smooth, shiny fabric of his half-collared, long-sleeved top. When he was gone, Sampson stepped closer to Ruby and leaned against the bookshelf so their hips touched.

  “I do not like, nor do I trust, that man.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

  “Send a blast across the radio network. Hit every tower. Stone isn’t to be touched, but if he isn’t found alone, it’s okay to capture him and his companions.” He turned and leaned forward, his face close to hers. Ruby felt her heart thump for a moment as she thought he might press his lips to hers. Instead, he placed a finger on her chest. “Be absolutely sure the message is clear. If any of our men cause the death of Stone or one of his compatriots, he’s going to have a very long visit with Augustus, and considering Augustus is probably quite pissed because of the change in the ranks, that should scare them.”

  “They know?”

  Sampson nodded slowly as he slapped the book’s bindings against his hand. “News travels fast. Especially news that suits me.”

  “You’re worried about the men getting complacent.”

  “Churchill hangs over every town in the region. It’s hurt our reputation with the people and strengthened that bitch Proctor’s resistance to joining Blacksburg to our region. We have enough men now that we can be more selective in our recruiting. Let’s learn to identify them earlier in the recruiting process the more we do it. We must iterate and optimize.”

  Ruby thought she got the gist of what he was saying but decided to look it up later in the dictionary he’d given her.

  “Tell me something?”

  “Of course, Rubes. What?”

  The nickname was somehow warmer from his lips.

  “Why did you send Bradshaw back to the south and put me in his place?”