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

by Ric Beard

  Do not pass out.

  Checking the meter on the rifle and pumping a few times to distract herself from the pain, she peered out.

  Not much could be seen through the filthy window, but glass wasn’t easy to come by out here, and breaking it was probably a permanent situation. Glass pebbles spit at her as two bullets pierced holes, and the wall across the room splintered. She eyed the holes.

  Oh well, it’s ruined now anyway.

  She banged out the glass with the barrel of her rifle, steadied herself, and fired three times.

  Six…seven…

  Jenna wouldn’t approve if she stayed here for too long and let them close on her, so Nina straightened her spine, willing the pain away, and kicked out in long strides as she reentered daylight. Men fired their weapons, but they were clumsy shots, nervous shots, pinging harmlessly off the ground around her. Lexi’s voice echoed in her head.

  Nothing instills fear like a violent smile.

  Nina spread her face into a wide grin.

  “Kill the bitch! Shoot her!” yelled her next target.

  The guns felt good; the pistol didn’t kick at all as she penetrated the groin of the asshole in the overalls on the stoop to the second building on the left; her prosthetic muffled the kick of the hybrid pulse rifle on the other side as she launched a shot into the mullet bearer who was too stupid to stay down the first time she’d hit him.

  Then she stopped in the middle of the street, feet spread wide, slightly bent at the knees, and focused on the targeting system. Dead bodies were strewn everywhere. Jake quivered in the dirt beneath the truck engine. Mathilda sat back on her legs in the same place she’d been when the battle started.

  The square pulsed between them, but the absence of weapons caused it to mark them green.

  “Anyone else?” Nina howled.

  Death’s silence was louder than the wind, but the electric pain sprawling across her ribs was loudest of all.

  Nina doubled over, wrapped her whole arm around her waist, and dragged her feet along the dirt toward Mathilda.

  “You okay?”

  Mathilda stared off into the distance as if she didn’t know Nina was there. Nina shrugged and stepped toward the man squirming in the gravel next to the truck. His arm was missing from the bicep down. It wasn’t lost on her that their arms matched.

  In her days as the chief investigator for Triangle Security Services, Nina bent people to her will with her words. The queen of interrogation, she drew out confessions like solar panels absorbed sun; but her words hadn’t done shit for her out here in the MidEast, and it was time for a new way of doing things. The time for passivity had passed.

  She stepped on the wounded man’s chest and shoved the barrel of her weapon against his forehead.

  “Where are my fucking friends?”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  WHICH WAY DID I FLIP IT?

  56

  An eruption of sound shocked Sean awake, and he jerked back from the steering wheel. His back hit the driver’s seat, and his head banged into the glass framed by the metal in the rear. The cabin spun like a carousel as the unmistakable tympani of weapons fire beat his ears from both sides.

  Twisting his head to clear his vision proved a bad idea as the horizontal spin turned vertical. Sean blinked repeatedly, trying to remove the sickening blur, hoping it would stop the nauseating spin. A crack of pulse fire was followed by a deafening metal ping next to Sean’s ear. He cringed and dropped down into the bench seat. His hand grasped blindly on the floorboard in search of his rifle, but it wasn’t materializing.

  His vision reminded him of submerging close to the shore in the ocean. The spin slowed as he lay still, but when he raised his head again, the world tilted, and he had to rest it on the seat.

  Twisting his arm at an awkward angle, he patted the floor again, but the rifle wasn’t there. Sean didn’t want to roll over for fear of the spins, but he was out of options.

  “C’mon,” he grunted, swinging his arm around and shaking his head. Something small, the size of a nut, passed under his hand and he swept it to the side as he continued his pursuit of the weapon. His hand slipped under the seat and hit pay dirt. Jerking the rifle stock repeatedly to clear it of debris that had shifted upon impact, Sean almost pulled himself off of the seat. After adjusting his weight, he pulled more gently, and the rifle came free. Continuing to blink as his head pounded like the migraines of long ago that he’d experienced in prison, he ran his fingers along the rifle until he found the lever release. The passenger door started to squeak, and Sean heard the thud of the handle being jerked. The click of the charge lever swinging down from the rifle was followed by the airy sound of pumping as Sean brought the discharge capacity to what he assumed was full power, but he still couldn’t see very well and wasn’t sure.

  The door swung open and the unmuffled gunfire outside filled the cabin. Sean leveled the rifle in the direction he best guessed was the door, down by his feet.

  But what if it’s Moss? You can’t shoot Moss!

  “Freeze, Stone!”

  Not Moss.

  Sean pulled the trigger.

  “Mah!”

  Target neutralized, bitch.

  Sean held the rifle close, listening, blinking. The quality of light was better now, brighter, but with the glare came more throbbing in his temples. The noise was deafening as the bent cab served as an echo chamber of the all-too-close gunfire outside. They were closing on the truck and evidently holding Moss at bay.

  The edges of the steering wheel and the cracked dashboard started to materialize as his vision cleared. A tinny sound chirping from the floor snapped his attention toward it. Tapping his ears, he realized he’d lost his comm pieces upon impact. Slapping around, he searched for the small earpiece he’d mistaken for debris when searching for the weapon.

  Which way did I flip it?

  Turning his head to the side, he squinted and blinked in succession. The earpiece was in the front of the floor board in the corner closest to the passenger’s side door.

  Sean slapped it into his ear and tapped his throat.

  “Moss.”

  The gunfire outside halted after a few seconds.

  “Good, you’re alive.”

  “I think so,” Sean said. “I have blood in my eyes.”

  “Hell of an impact. I was afraid you’d crush your head on the steering wheel.”

  Sean raised a hand and tapped gingerly at his forehead, wincing with a shock of pain followed by a white flash. Blood covered his fingertips when he pulled his hand away.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” Moss asked.

  “Split my head open.”

  “Fucking hell. Vision blurry?”

  Gunfire erupted again on one side and was returned by a single shot on the other.

  “Yes. Might be concussion, doesn’t feel like I’ll be taking a jog.”

  “Sean, listen to me. These guys are for real. They’re squeezing me out, coming from both sides. I can’t get to you. They’re going to be pissed about the guy you laid out in the street just now. You need to throw your rifle out the door.”

  “What are you, fucking crazy?”

  “Sean, they’re going to take you. There’s nothing I can do about it at this point. I’d prefer they take you alive.”

  “I’m not sure I prefer it!” Pain erupted in his temples with the rise in the tone of his voice. “Can’t you whip up a surprise from your Cat?”

  “They’ll light it up if I pull into the road. They disabled one of the tracks, and it’s going to take time to repair.”

  “Shit.”

  “Sean, listen to me. I have people in OK City. We’ll find you.”

  “What if I don’t live that long?”

  “Do you think Bingham wants you dead?”

  “I don’t know. I think she wants to research me and give herself a long life.”

  “Then you’re safe, for now. Trust me. Throw your gun out. Stick the earpiece in your boot. Do
it now.”

  “Shit, man, I—”

  “They’re on you, Sean! Do it now, before they see you!”

  “You better come for me!” Sean ripped the earpiece out of his ear, reached down, and shoved it in his boot. His rifle rattled on the road outside as he slid it toward the door. Three figures passed the open doorway, wielding heavy rifles. Sean stared at their backs as one reached down and grabbed his rifle. A fourth leveled his weapon on Sean.

  “Don’t move, Stone. I might not be able to kill you, but I’ll maim you if you so much as twitch.”

  “I’m not resisting,” Sean said. He showed the man his palms.

  “Anyone got the target?”

  “He’s in the woods,” another voice said. “Can’t get a bearing.”

  “Leave him,” another voice said. “We have what we came for. Radio Sampson, let him know the drugs are here. If he moves fast enough, maybe he can pin the squirmy bastard down.” A short figure wearing combat fatigues hanging loosely on his scrawny frame appeared in the space usually filled by the door. A wide grin crossed his face. “Sean, old buddy. So, nice to see you, again.”

  “I knew I should’ve killed you while I had the chance.”

  “You wound me,” Carson said in a monotone. “Get a medic over here. We wouldn’t want Mister Stone’s homecoming to be in a box.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  CRAZY OLD COOT

  57

  Mathilda sat wild-eyed, hands held out, palms up in front of her.

  Nina cinched up the muscles in her forehead. Raising her foot off the squirming man whose arm she’d melted with the plasma grenade, hoping he’d reach for a weapon or something and give her an excuse, she cocked her head to the side as the old woman’s head started to tick.

  “You killed all of them,” The old woman’s voice croaked the words of afterthought. Shiny streaks running down her face reflected the late day light, but her eyes were dry now, caked in the white sand of the gravel road. A small cut curved over her right eye. “Every single one. Just blew them away without a care.”

  “Without a care?”

  Splaying her hands out in a V above her head, Mathilda pushed her butt off the back of her legs and stood on her knees, seemingly immune to the gravel biting into her skin beneath them.

  “Like a devil. Like the evil just jumped up in you and brought fiery wrath down upon us all!” She flashed a crooked finger at Nina. “Like you was possessed!” The middle-aged woman’s eyes stitched so wide Nina could see red around her eye sockets inside prematurely drooping skin.

  Nina pushed herself backward on the gravel, distancing herself from the woman.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” Jake ambled to where Mathilda stood on her knees, gripping the arm she still held aloft. “She’s a little prone to hysteria. Not uncommon in users.”

  “Users?”

  “The powder.”

  Nina nodded her head. “Meth.”

  “What’s meth?” Jake asked.

  “It’s called Methamphetamine.”

  “Who in the world would give something such a long name when you could just call it, The powder?”

  Nina sighed. “How long has she been off it?”

  “Weeks, now. But it changed her. Changed all of us in our own ways.”

  “You used it, too?”

  “Not me, I can tend the horses without it, but a few around here said it helped ‘em get more done. We didn’t know it was gonna hurt anything.” His head turned slowly from side to side. “We should have because of where it came from. They got us hooked on the stuff and then, when we didn’t want to give up our food, they held it over our heads. But they hadn’t hooked me, you see. Little by little, I convinced my people to let it go.”

  “How’d that work for you?”

  “We’re all clean. Every single one of us. Lucky that demon dust didn’t get its claws all the way in.” He looked at his shoes and frowned. “But there’s more dead ‘cause of it.”

  “Like a devil!” Mathilda said, rising to her feet, stabilizing herself with the help of Jake’s arm. “Did you come to save us, devil? Or you gonna kill us, too? Might as well!” She jerked her finger around at the bodies strewn about. “What you think ol’ Sampson gonna do when he gets wind of this? Huh? You think you helped us today? Might have just killed me and let the rest be. But you had to come back! Didn’t I tell you not to come back?”

  Nina lent a cautious eye to Mathilda while continuing to address Jake. “Is she gonna come at me?”

  “No. I don’t reckon. She never really was much for fighting. But her mama brought her up real religious like. They was part of a group outside the territory, way up north. Ol’ Matty here snuck down when her people were kilt by raiders out of the Northeast.”

  “Yorkies?”

  “Don’t know.“

  “She’s seen a lot of death, then. I’m sorry.”

  “The devil woman is sorry!” Mathilda turned in a circle, hands waving above her head again.

  Jake gently grabbed both Matilda’s arms and tugged at her. “Come, Matty. You need some rest.”

  The woman tilted her head as if she was setting her crazy glare on him for the first time. “We gotta go for the girls, Jakie. Gotta get ‘em from the cave.”

  “We will, sweetie. We will. Now c’mon.” He looked back at Nina over his shoulder. “We are thankful. All of us. We’ll get this cleaned up. Let me get her settled. I’ll be right back.”

  “They can clean it up all they want,” a voice on the ground next to her said, “but they’re all fucking dead. You’re all gonna be dead, bitch.”

  Nina ejected the charge lever and pumped the rifle.

  “Sampson is gonna send Bradshaw for you,” the one-armed wonder continued. “You’re gonna die slow. Then he’s gonna…” his voice trailed off as Nina went about a routine.

  She casually tapped the meter on the stock. Power.

  She thumped the slots next to the discharge coil to make sure there was no buildup. Vent.

  She thumbed the power level to red. Red is dead.

  The town was deserted except for the dead bodies sprawled across the white dirt road. Maybe Matilda’s cries had made them pity her, and they’d gone back inside to avoid her embarrassment. Maybe they’d never come out at all, once the firing started. Nina’d been in the zone. She couldn’t have been sure, either way.

  They went inside because you’re a devil.

  Lowering the rifle so the barrel tapped the center of the man’s chest, Nina looked along the barren road.

  “Go ahead and shoot me, you cu—”

  The rifle jerked her prosthetic arms the slightest bit this time, perhaps because of the blow back from the close range of the shot. Slinging its strap back over her shoulder and yanking the cord on front so it sat snug, she sighed.

  She told her mind to shut up and stepped over the corpse of the driver, bending down to pick up his pistol, which had been just out of his grasp, and shove it beneath her combat suit belt. Climbing onto the back of the truck, she stopped, dropping her arms to her side. Boxes lined either side of the bed. Flipping one open revealed long, worm-shaped objects inside jars.

  Green beans.

  She flicked off another lid and found squash. Another, tomatoes. More and more. She stood and looked back up the road to the east, from which the truck had returned. Then she turned and looked west.

  There’s no telling where all this came from. Creaky hinges in the distance signaled Jake’s return to the road. Flicking his eyes around in search of Nina, he spotted her on the truck and hobbled over, favoring his right side.

  “You’re limping.”

  “Crazy old coot kicked my shin. She’s already in bed though. Too much excitement.” He walked around to the tailgate and tilted his head. “What you got there?”

  “I’d say it’s your next couple of months’ food.” She bit into some raw green beans and chewed the rubbery texture ravenously. “Hope you don’t mind sharing.”<
br />
  Jake smiled through his bushy gray beard. “And here, I didn’t think the devil ate at all.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  SONZA-BITCHES

  58

  This attack had been intimate. Unlike the first crew to the northwest, who’d been discovered in the back of a troop carrier, strewn haplessly about, these enforcers were spread in a circle around the truck, darkened sand around their bodies where the blood had turned it sienna. Ruby circled the perimeter and mentally photographed their wounds. Two had been sliced open at the throat, too deep to call out for aid. The other two were the recipients of wide holes in the backs and fronts of their necks.

  Though she’d perused the face of each man, there was no sign of Britt Marbury, the lawkeeper from Ingle’s Ferry who’d disappeared the previous night, after having been seen escorting a woman toward the edge of town. Though this was Bradshaw’s territory, she’d met Britt when he trained at the mine in Shawsville about the time Sampson recruited Ruby.

  Bradshaw’s lofty form leaned against the truck, his hat pulled low over his forehead, staring down at the body of one of his men who’d been throat stabbed.

  “Quick,” he said. “Two killers. Kept it good and quiet. Took the two on one side simultaneously, then the other two. Tactical. Seems these Black Ghosts are sending us a message.”

  Ruby stared down at the man over whom Bradshaw stood as she tossed a package up and down in her hand, as if guessing its weight.

  “What do you think that message is, exactly?”

  “That we aren’t safe? That Sampson isn’t in control? That they aren’t afraid?”

  “Hm.” Ruby walked back to the truck and leaned near the towering man. “Or they could be saying they’re tired of men like this taking unwarranted liberties with the citizens around here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Ruby shrugged, tossed the small pouch onto the tailgate, pulled out her knife, and picked under a fingernail. “They aren’t allowed to use it. Why the personal stash?”