Forsaken World (Book 1): Innocence Lost

by Watson, Thomas A.

  “I say just shoot the slow-driving candy asses,” Lance said, feeling better and able to see quite a ways down the road. “There still aren’t a lot of lights from the houses.”

  “Stinkers are here,” Ian said, watching one trot toward the road. Lance weaved over and missed it. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not hitting one that big going this fast.”

  “Did you see his chest?” Ian asked, looking around.

  “Yeah, had blood on it like he got bit,” Lance said, having trouble making the speedometer stay at fifty-five. His foot was used to forty-five.

  Ian shook his head. “I don’t think it was a bite. I think it was a gunshot.”

  “Okay,” Lance said, pushing the pedal until he hit sixty.

  Seeing a wreck ahead, Lance moved over but didn’t slow down. “I could be wrong, but I didn’t see, like, a gaping hole,” Ian said as they blew past the wreck.

  Speeding down the road, Lance had to weave around another wreck. “What are those lights out there on my left?”

  He glanced at Ian to see his friend staring at the lights just off the road. “Lance, go faster.”

  “I knew this was a bad idea,” Jennifer said, looking out the back side window. Seeing a ring of motorcycles with their lights pointed in the middle, she saw a man strapped to a cross, screaming. A man was approaching holding a torch. All through the circle of motorcycles, she saw images that burned in her mind.

  “Bullshit, that was the road we would’ve been on if we hadn’t taken the big road,” Ian snapped. “God damn it, Lance, make this tub of shit move!” The GPS told them to turn down the road Ian wanted away from really bad. “Fuck that, whore. Get us out of here!”

  Pressing the pedal to the floor, Lance shouted, “What the fuck is it?” and glanced over to see a cop car pulling away from a group of lights. The cop car was paralleling them on a small dirt road as Lance pulled away. “You’re worried about cops?”

  “Mother fucker, those aren’t cops,” Ian said, shoving the map between the seats. “They were burning a man alive.” He tapped the GPS screen to mute the bitch.

  “How do you know it was a man and not a stinker?”

  “Just trust me,” Ian said, glancing at the speedometer. “We can’t go faster than eighty?”

  “This is a Hummer, Ian, not a Ferrari. We are pulling a big ass heavy trailer and have the Hummer loaded down with shit. Be fucking happy with eighty unless you want to get out and push.”

  Spinning around, Ian looked in his side mirror. “Not fast enough.”

  “Alpha is ahead; are we almost where we need to turn?”

  “No,” Ian shouted, reaching up and pressing the button to open the sun roof. “Past Susie, you’ll see a field on your right one mile past town. The road is on the right.”

  Wind roared as the window opened, and Ian crawled up in his seat and stood up through the sun roof. “What the fuck is he doing?” Jennifer shouted over the noise, trying to put Allie and Carrie at ease.

  “Shit if I know,” Lance yelled, not taking his eyes off the road for anything as he weaved around a car that was pulled across the road. Hitting the shoulder at eighty, he felt the trailer fishtail as he eased back on the road.

  Ian dropped down and closed the sun roof. Seeing the road curve ahead, he looked at his AR and said, “Susie is going to be ahead. When I tell you, I want you to stop on the road. You and I will get out and shoot whoever is driving that cop car. Most of the motorcycles peeled off the road back there near Alpha. I don’t think they knew where we went, but a few motorcycles came from a house just off the road from that car you blew around in the middle of the road.”

  “That was a roadblock?” Lance asked, fighting a shiver.

  “Yeah, there were a few cars in the ditch that were shot to shit.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Jennifer asked, getting her AR ready.

  “Watch in front of us to see if any vehicles come from that way,” Ian said as they blew past Susie, and he grabbed the map. “You can’t get out because it’s too hard for you to get back in.”

  “Field,” Lance said and took his foot off the accelerator. “That the road you’re talking about ahead past those buildings?”

  “Yeah, stop on the road, and let’s get them off our ass.”

  Jennifer leaned over Dino and opened the sun roof back up. “Shut it; I can see better from here, and I’m not out of the Hummer.”

  Getting closer, Lance hit the brakes a little too hard, making everyone jerk forward. “Sorry,” he said, easing up on the brake.

  “The building on the other side of the road is five hundred yards away, and that’s the extreme range for us,” Ian said, throwing the map on the dash and grabbing his door handle. He looked in his side mirror and saw the lights were just coming out of Susie.

  “How about just leaving?” Lance said, stopping and putting the Hummer in park.

  “No, and no time to explain,” Ian said as he got out and left his door open. He quickly scanned around and sniffed the air.

  “I smell a stinky but can’t see one,” Jennifer said, standing up in the sun roof.

  “Deal with the threat that can drive and shoot first,” Ian said, raising his rifle. “Use as many magazines as you need to because we can’t let them follow us.”

  Checking his magazines across his chest, Lance lifted his rifle and hit the UV laser, aiming it down the road at the approaching lights. In his goggles, the laser looked massive and powerful, but without night vision, it couldn’t be seen.

  Then, Lance saw two more lasers appear, aiming down the road. “Jennifer, you’re supposed to be watching ahead and around us,” Ian shouted.

  “I am, and besides some goats down the road, nothing is close.”

  “What the hell is taking them so long?” Lance asked and saw a light shine out of the car off the side of the road and illuminate a house.

  “That’s what I was talking about; they are making sure we didn’t pull off. They did that right after we passed that car in the road and are doing it now. I believe they have some in front of us and are talking to them. Since we haven’t passed the others, we must be hiding,” Ian said.

  “You could’ve just said, ‘fuckers think we’re hiding,’” Lance mumbled as the car eased closer, and he could see lights behind it.

  “I count four motorcycles behind the cop car,” Jennifer said.

  “Wait till I shoot. I’m going to start when they are three hundred yards away,” Ian shouted.

  Lance wanted to complain about that, knowing how fast he could cover three hundred yards in a vehicle. But as he watched the car coming down the road, he realized it wasn’t going faster than forty. As they passed the last building on the left-hand side of the road, Lance’s heart started beating faster, watching lights from both sides of the car sweep the fields.

  “Now!” Ian yelled, and the cough of suppressed shots filled the air.

  Lance saw sparks hit the car and the lights go out as the car swerved back and forth over the road, hitting one of the motorcycles that tried to pass. Pulling his trigger but not feeling it give, Lance dropped the empty magazine and rammed another one then hit the ping pong paddle release.

  As the bolt slammed home, Lance moved his laser to a motorcycle charging toward them, pulling the trigger as fast as he could and making the driver crash. Lance dropped the empty magazine. “Don’t let them too close, or our goggles will turn off!”

  Slamming in a new magazine, Lance looked up and didn’t see any moving vehicles but saw moving people. With the laser, Lance hit two, making them drop, and he chased another one behind the shot up cop car. He slammed in another magazine and dumped the entire thing in the cop car front to back and was rewarded with several screams.

  “We need to go,” Ian shouted.

  Lance bent down and tossed his empties into the Hummer and jumped in, throwing his AR on the dash. “Get it off the dash!” Jennifer screamed. Ian pulled it off and shook his hand as Lance shoved the s
hifter in drive, stomping the gas and pulling down the narrow blacktop road.

  Ian held up his gloved hand, showing Lance the smoke pouring off. “Damn barrel is hot.”

  “No shit,” Jennifer yelled. “It burned through my shirt when I dropped down.”

  Ian turned around to see her holding her left shoulder. “You okay?”

  “No, I have a burn on my shoulder, but can I shoot, hell yes.”

  “How many magazines did you use, Lance?” Ian asked, turning back around.

  “Four or five. You?”

  “Six,” Ian said and looked around. “Jennifer, how many did you use?”

  “Three,” she hissed, breathing through the pain.

  Grabbing the magazines Lance threw inside, Ian pulled his small pack from the floorboard and dug out ammo. “Holy shit, that sign said Bethesda ahead,” Lance said, dropping his speed back to forty-five so the damn trailer would quit sliding across the road.

  “Yeah, they made good games,” Ian chuckled, loading magazines. “Wait till you see what the next town is.”

  “What?” Lance asked, grinning as he took a long curve.

  “Number One,” Ian chuckled.

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah, wish we could get a picture,” Ian said, grabbing another magazine and loading it.

  “Will you two get to the here and fucking now?! We aren’t talking about X-box or Star Trek!” Jennifer shouted. “We have fuckers after us!”

  “You knew what Bethesda was?” Lance asked, impressed.

  “They made the Fallout series! Will you get us out of here?!”

  “Road ahead take a left,” Ian said.

  Barely slowing since it was more a merge than turn, Lance pressed the pedal down when he was back on a two-lane blacktop. “Never believed she would know what Bethesda was,” Lance whispered.

  Leaning over to Lance, Ian whispered, “Told ya she was awesome.” With tears in her eyes from the pain, Jennifer just gritted her teeth as she grinned. “When we come to a T, you want the road to the right.”

  Lance nodded, slowing for a series of curves. “The road they were on is the one GPS wanted us to stay on, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Ian said, finishing his and Lance’s magazines. He reached over and shoved them in Lance’s chest rig. “You know using those lasers like that, it was a lot like Rainbow Six.”

  “Wasn’t that cool?” Lance chuckled. “I chased them down with the laser and pulled the trigger when it touched them.”

  “Stinkers,” Ian said, looking ahead, watching a group trot toward the road. Only a few made it, and Lance sent them flying. “More on the right.”

  “Yeah, I see them,” Lance said, slowing down to thirty. A rather large group made it to the road. The Hummer thumped with impacts and bounced over the bodies. When he reached the end of the group, Lance eased the pedal down. “I like fighting stinkers better than people with guns.”

  They passed the sign that read, “Number One.” “I’d like to have that,” Ian said, moving the ARs away from his body as he put his loaded magazines in his chest rig.

  Taking his foot off the accelerator, Lance let the Hummer coast to the stop sign ahead. Breaking his own rule about taking his eyes off the road, Lance turned to look at all the houses on his left side with his mouth falling open and shook his head. “That is a shit load of stinkers,” he said, stomping the accelerator.

  Ian and Jennifer turned and both gasped upon seeing small groups heading toward them. The problem was it was a shit load of small groups. One group merged with another and then another. In the few seconds they watched, it seemed like the stinkers were multiplying again as they formed larger and larger masses.

  Turning back to the road, Ian saw the turn ahead. “Lance, this isn’t a true T. The road to the right is much more slanted back. You need to slow down.”

  “Fuck that; they are multiplying, and we can’t divide!”

  “If you wreck, they will subtract our asses in fractions!” Ian shouted, reaching out and bracing for the turn. “Shit!” he screamed when his AR’s barrel touched his forearm.

  Easing off the pedal, Lance did slow as he took the turn wide. “This is a fucking V, not a T,” he snapped as he slowed more and felt the first impacts of the stinkers on his side of the Hummer.

  When the front end was pointing down the new road, Lance buried his foot in the floorboard. “This town can’t be this big with a cool name like Number One; otherwise, we would’ve heard about it!” he yelled, seeing more stinkers filling the road in front of him. Easing up on the accelerator and gripping the steering wheel hard, Lance gritted his teeth. “H1 Alpha butt monkeys.”

  The impacts were so many and constant that the Hummer shuddered as Lance sent bodies through the air and bounced over what didn’t go air mail. “They’re getting too thick,” Ian said, watching more come on the road. “We’re going to high center if we don’t miss some.”

  “Just how do you expect me to miss some? I swear they think I’m driving a fucking ice cream truck the way they’re coming at us.” Seeing an end to the pack, Lance stomped his foot down, plowing through the throng of bodies. Busting out of the back of the pack, Lance yelled, “H1 Alpha rules!”

  With only a few bodies moving up on the road, Lance weaved around them as the Hummer picked up speed. “You love this Hummer a little too much,” Ian said, grabbing a bottle of water and pouring it on the burn on his arm.

  “Well, you want good news or bad news first?” Lance said, rocking back and forth in his seat, willing the Hummer faster.

  “Bad,” Ian groaned, looking around then at the dash, thinking the Hummer was hurt.

  “Lights coming up behind us,” Lance said, weaving around a stinker.

  Looking in his side mirror, Ian saw lights coming down a small rise further down the road they had just turned off of. The road was packed with stinkers heading toward the lights coming after them. “What’s the good news then?”

  “Lights are coming up behind us,” Lance said as they rounded a curve, and Ian didn’t get to see the lights meet the mass of stinkers.

  “Well for once, I can say the bad news was the good news,” Ian said as the Hummer sped down the road, and Ian was about to say something about the speed when he felt Lance slow down. Watching the road, Ian whipped his head around, following something outside, then looked in the side mirror. “Bad news and no good.”

  “What, those two Girl Scouts on motorcycles back there?” Lance asked, seeing two lights pull out behind him.

  “Yep,” Ian said, passing Lance his AR. “Barrel is still hot,” he said, reaching for the sun roof.

  “Dude, they are almost on us, and you’re just not going to stand out?”

  “What do you think we should do?” Ian said, looking over at Lance.

  “Nothing yet,” Lance said and turned to Ian. With the four tubes from Lance’s night vision goggles over half his face, Ian thought Lance looked like a space alien.

  “What? Nothing?” Ian said, turning to see the motorcycles gaining fast.

  “Yeah, H1 Alpha vs motorized bicycle, round one,” Lance grinned and watched his side mirror.

  When he saw the motorcycle pass the trailer, Lance yanked the steering wheel hard. The bike clipped the front end and went end over end as the driver flew twenty feet up then hit the pavement headfirst, skidding down the road.

  Yanking the steering wheel back to the right as the front left tire hit the shoulder, Lance headed to the other shoulder. The second bike almost made it but clipped the brush guard. The driver reached out, grabbing onto the brush guard as his bike slid out from under him.

  With his feet dragging on the road, he screamed for them to stop as he tried to pull himself up. Yanking the steering wheel as the front right tire hit the shoulder, Lance yelled, “You sound like a little girl! Are you just a little bitch?” and the biker quit yelling and looked up at the windshield but couldn’t see inside. The Hummer bounced as it ran over the body of the other biker, and Lance
yelled, “Get your little dick off my Hummer!”

  The biker reached forward, trying to pull himself up, and Lance would yank the wheel, and the man would just grab the hood. Suddenly, the biker reached to his back and pulled out a pistol. “Oh, he has a 1911,” Lance said, yanking the wheel back and forth, weaving down the road.

  With the violent movement and only one hand holding on, the biker flipped over on his back, screaming, and even Jennifer thought it sounded like a girl. As the Hummer swerved back, the biker flipped back over, dropping the pistol on the hood. The pistol slid a few inches and got caught under the brush guard.

  As the biker started timing Lance’s swerves, he used the bars of the brush guard on the hood as a ladder and was able to pull his feet off the road. “That looks very tiring,” Ian said when he saw the biker panting.

  “Will you shoot the motherfucker?” Lance yelled. “The damn chains on his belt are scratching the hood!”

  “Dude, you’ve hit half the population of Tennessee and Kentucky with the Hummer, and you’re worried about some scratches?”

  “Hey, those were done in battle. Now, I’m carrying around a pussy boy strapped to my hood,” Lance said. “I killed mine; kill yours.”

  “Our turn is coming up soon. Leave him there until we turn off in case his buddies make it past the stinkers behind us,” Ian said, grabbing the map.

  “Left turn one mile ahead,” the GPS announced, making everyone jump. They had kept hitting mute when the bitch kept telling them they were off course.

  “What the whore said,” Ian said, putting the map back on the dash. “This is where we would’ve crossed this road. We would’ve come out on the right side.”

  “Yeah, figured that out since we are turning left,” Lance chuckled.

  Ian turned, looking out the side window. “He’s looking in the window.”

  “So what,” Lance said, yanking the wheel and seeing the man shift his body weight. Looking at the man, Lance saw he was rather large with a beard. He was wearing a leather jacket with a picture of the devil on the back.