The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  She smiled and gave him another hug. It must have been the hundredth one that morning. “Are you sure it’s okay to tell me a story without the boys here? Won’t they get mad?”

  “It’s alright. Besides, the boys don’t want to know about Aeric’s love life,” he said with a wink.

  “Oh, are you gonna tell me if our grandmother is Katie or Veronica?”

  “Yes, child. Now, settle in on Grandad’s lap—Oof! Watch the arm,” he groaned as she adjusted herself into a comfortable position so she could hear the story.

  Tanya watched his face intently as he stared off towards the fireplace. His eyes glazed over and then he began to speak.

  *****

  Aeric was settling into life in San Angelo. The people here were nice and he felt like he had a purpose in life instead of wasting time, waiting for the inevitable. He and Tyler had started out as members on the Gathering Squad six months ago. Over time and continual successful missions, Mayor Delgado promoted them and now they managed all of the squads.

  As far as apocalyptic life ten months after a global nuclear war went, his was almost perfect. Everyone that he cared for was safe, he had a purpose in life and for now, there was enough food and water. Except for the raiders outside the walls, the only real issue he had was with the two beautiful women in his life.

  His girlfriend, Kate, whom he’d dated since middle school, broke up with his senior year of high school and had begun dating again after he rescued her from a life of prostitution after the war, was pregnant with another man’s baby. Then, there was Veronica. They’d only kissed that one time, before the war, but they spent time together almost every day and he felt more and more drawn towards her each time he said goodbye.

  He’d developed a strong emotional bond with both of them and it was an interesting situation that he was in with the two women. When they first met, they’d been cold to one another. Over time, and with the limited space within the city, they’d come to realize that while they had different ethnic backgrounds, they were similar in almost every way.

  Kate had been the prom queen in high school, Veronica was the homecoming queen at hers. Both had influential fathers, Kate’s had died years ago in a skiing accident, while Veronica’s father was still alive and held the office of San Angelo’s mayor. They had similar interests in clothing style, mannerisms and even their sense of humor. It was inevitable that they’d end up as either close friends or bitter enemies.

  Luckily for Aeric, they’d chosen to become friends instead of enemies, both choosing to keep a wary eye on the other. Katie knew that she had Aeric’s heart and allowed herself to open her own to Veronica. During the trip back from Missouri, she’d been jealous of Veronica before she’d even met the woman. Her jealousy seemed to have faded with the confidence that her impending motherhood had instilled in her.

  She’d grown as a woman over the last year. When he’d returned to his hometown to find his father dead and his mother a prisoner in her own home, Katie had been a prostitute on the street, trading her body for scraps of food. Then, she’d been taken hostage by Justin, the former leader of the Vultures, and turned into a sex slave. It was Justin’s baby that grew inside of her, not Aeric’s. Kate had been able to use those horrible experiences to strengthen her character, allowing the pain and disgrace to fade away and not define her.

  The scars that Justin had disfigured Aeric with, earning him the nickname “Traxx” were also fading. The youthful elasticity of his skin helped a lot, but so did the scar therapy cream that Veronica gave him from the old medical supply factory on the northeast side of town. He’d diligently used the cream on his face and most of the scars had paled. The ones on his jawline and neck were mostly hidden by the short beard that he wore, leaving only those around his eyes, nose and forehead visible.

  His attempts to fade the scarring stopped at his face, though. He hadn’t bothered to try and spend the effort on the ones that crisscrossed his body. They were simply too extensive and it was next to impossible to even know where to begin trying to treat them. Instead, he wore them as a badge of honor, proclaiming to everyone who saw them that he’d survived torture at the hands of the Vultures. They weren’t the unbeatable force that everyone had thought that they were.

  While the ash still fell from the skies almost daily, it wasn’t the massive debris storms that had blanketed the earth with the remains of the old world like it had been in the early months after the war. The bulk of the ash stayed suspended in the clouds as Tyler had predicted it would and there’d even been a few times when the sun peeked through enough to bring the temperatures above the freezing mark.

  Aeric rode his bike from his house to the warehouse where he worked. He and Kate lived three streets away from Veronica’s with Tyler and Kate’s little sister Julie, along with baby Kayla, who spent several nights a week with the guard Shellie when she wasn’t on duty at one of the checkpoints. It was an imperfect system; one that they all knew would have to change as they readjusted to life inside a secure city, but having Tyler close to everyone made Aeric feel safer.

  Every morning he and Tyler reported to the Stephens Arena, Angelo State University’s old basketball arena, where they’d begun stockpiling every kind of supply imaginable from food and water to clothing and weaponry. It was a centrally-located, secure facility with wide-open fields of fire for the guards assigned there. The mayor renamed it the Provisions Warehouse and anything that couldn’t be stored there was locked up in a few other smaller locations across the city. They’d even begun the construction of defenses around the arena to make it as secure as possible. The supplies were the city’s lifeline.

  When he could, Aeric made sure to leave a few minutes before Tyler so he could stop by and eat breakfast with Veronica. It was a habit that he’d developed soon after they arrived in San Angelo. It started out as a way to pass information that grew into one of the most anticipated parts of his day. She’d fill him in on the details of what happened in the city that she’d learned from her father and he’d pass along the Gathering Squads’ targets for the day or go over any units on extended patrols. After the business was complete, they’d spend time together just talking as friends and laughing about her experiences at the soup kitchen that she ran for the city. He valued her friendship almost as much as the one that he had with Tyler.

  Aeric turned his bike onto Veronica’s driveway and braked in front of the garage door. Even though the mayor lived in the nicest part of the city, it was all relative in their post-apocalyptic world. He didn’t want his bike stolen, so he wheeled it with him to the front door and knocked.

  After a few seconds, Veronica opened the door. “Good morning, Aeric!” she smiled.

  “Morning, Vee. Can I come in?”

  “When are you gonna stop asking that?”

  “Probably never,” he replied as he pushed his bicycle through the door and placed it next to hers in the foyer.

  “You’re always welcome here, Aeric. Always,” she whispered in his ear as she gave him a hug.

  Veronica often made it plain to him what she thought about his relationship with Katie. Even though the two of them were strictly plutonic friends, she felt that Kate had used the situation in Missouri to get back with Aeric when he should have been with her. Sometimes he felt like one of those old kids’ toys that got punched, fell over, and then popped right back into place to be hit from the opposite side.

  He ignored her comment as he’d done for months and dug into his backpack. “I brought some cereal and powdered milk,” he stated.

  “Oh, yum,” she answered with mock enthusiasm, quickly dropping the subject about him staying with her. It was one that they’d talked about often and they were at the point where she’d offer a friendly reminder and then move on. “So, where are you guys headed today?”

  “We got a lead on a warehouse in a town near Midland-Odessa, so we’ll be taking one of the military trucks to get as much as possible.”

  She smiled and said, “Good.
I feel better about your missions when you guys take a truck.”

  “It’s not the preferred method since we only have a finite amount of useable fuel, but since it’s so far away we don’t really have a choice,” Aeric shrugged helplessly.

  “How far away?” Her voice edged on alarm that she struggled to suppress.

  “About seventy-five miles,” he responded. “It’ll be an overnight trip. If there’s anything there, it’ll be worth it.”

  “We don’t know the status of Midland and Odessa. They were both a little bit bigger than San Angelo. It might be dangerous if they’ve taken the precautions that we have and set up long-range scavenging parties.”

  He handed the powdered milk to Veronica, who measured out two servings worth and used a whisk to mix in the water. While she mixed, he said, “Yeah, that’s why we’re taking two squads of Lorelei’s Shooters with us. We’re hoping that the two of them fractured enough along city lines that they’re only concerned with each other and not what’s further away.”

  “It’s terrible that we’re hoping for a war between other cities so we can swoop in and take stuff from under their noses,” she stated. It was the way their new world was, kill or be killed, steal and survive or don’t and die. “What’s the name of the town?”

  “It’s a small town called Garden City. They’re about forty miles or so from Midland, so I’m hoping that we’ll be good.”

  “What about the people who live there?”

  “We’ll offer them the same deal that we offer everyone. They can come live here in the safety of San Angelo in exchange for all of their supplies or they could possibly become a trading partner. Or maybe we’ll have to fight; we don’t know yet. One of the advantages to this place is that it’s isolated from everyone else, so those people may not want anything to do with us, which will suck since we’re taking the truck up there.”

  “Can’t be helped,” she stated and poured the reconstituted milk over the two bowls of cereal that Aeric made while they talked.

  They carried their bowls to the kitchen table and sat opposite each other, eating in silence for a few minutes. Then the sound of Aeric’s spoon scraping against his empty bowl reminded them that he had to leave. He stood and put his dishes in the trash. They’d had the good fortune to find a warehouse full of paper dishes and plastic utensils early on. Whenever possible, they tried to use the disposable dinnerware to avoid wasting their drinking water to clean dishes.

  Veronica hugged him firmly from behind, resting her head on his back in a decidedly not friendly gesture of affection. “Take care of yourself and your men, Aeric. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  He turned and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her back. “We’ll be fine. Lorelei has trained her Shooters better than anything else out there. We can handle ourselves.”

  “Against a few people, yeah. But what if you run into a big group or if you guys come across some of those things that have been popping up?”

  The things that Veronica asked about were mutated animals—and sometimes people. All the radiation had already begun to alter creatures on the genetic level. The ones that survived the winter passed along the mutations to their young in the spring. Some of the mutations were harmless, like extra limbs, while others had already begun showing frightening changes. There were wild dogs that had extra-long nails and larger teeth that could punch through heavy clothing, goats with wickedly-spiked horns, lizards with nearly impenetrable scales, and the list went on. Aeric wondered what those creatures would evolve into over the course of twenty or thirty years.

  “We can handle them. The truck gives us all sorts of options to stay high out of their way.”

  “What about on the way back, when the truck is full and you’re riding your bike?”

  “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  “I do worry, Aeric,” she insisted and squeezed his waist even harder, pressing herself into him. “You mean so much to me. You’re my best friend and you know more about me than anyone left alive in San Angelo besides my father. You know that I’ll worry about you nonstop until you get back tomorrow.”

  “I know. Just…don’t, okay? Me and Ty got this.”

  Veronica leaned back away from him and looked into his eyes. “You take too many risks. You’re the head of the Gathering Squads, you can stay in town and have other people carry out your orders.”

  “That’s not me and you know it,” he sighed. He’d gotten the exact same grief from Katie before he left. “I have a responsibility to this town. You’ve given me and my friends so much; we owe it to you to give back. Ty and me aren’t desk people, we roll up our sleeves and get to work when things need doing.”

  She laughed and smacked him playfully on the chest. “You sound like some political candidate in a television ad.”

  He grinned along with her. “Yeah, I guess it was kind of corny, huh?”

  “It was more than corny. More like clichéd and predictable.” Her smile faded away and she continued, “You don’t always have to be the hero, Aeric.”

  He snorted and tried to step away. Veronica stepped with him, still holding on. “I’m not a hero. I just think it’s the right thing to do. I can’t sit at a desk somewhere and ask my guys to put themselves in danger.”

  “I know,” she said and buried her face in his chest. “That’s why I love you.”

  Shit. Fuckity-shit, double shit! “Um… I… Veronica, you know how I feel about you. You mean the world to me.”

  “But not enough to be with me.”

  “I’m with Katie, your friend, remember? She’s pregnant.”

  “Not with your baby, Aeric.”

  “Please, let’s not have this discussion now,” he answered uncomfortably. At times like this, he was painfully aware that he’d only really dated Kate; he didn’t have any other previous experience with women to draw from. “I really need to get to the Provisions Warehouse so we can get going.”

  She held him tight, not granting him the escape that he desperately wanted right then. “I have one question for you, Aeric. I’ve never asked you before, and I won’t ever bring it up again if you answer me truthfully.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “If Kate hadn’t gotten pregnant, would you still be with her? I understand that you’re trying to be honorable, but it’s that gang leader’s baby, not yours.”

  He got angry for a split second. Regardless of whose child it was, he would raise it as his own. The anger quickly subsided as he tried to see it from her point of view. She was looking for answers to help her deal with her own feelings. He wished that he knew what she needed to hear. If he said that he would have been with her, would that hurt the relationship that she’d developed with Kate? On the other hand, if he said that he would have stayed with Katie regardless, would that make Veronica feel inadequate?

  God, he hated all the talking about this subject. He was so much better in the field, out where he could take matters into his own hands. No one ever second-guessed a decision that he made in the heat of the moment. It was so much simpler to define life by action and reaction than the various traps and snares that he had to dance around with the women in his life.

  “Well, are you gonna answer?” she prodded.

  He stared down into her deep, brown eyes. “I’m sorry, Veronica. I was thinking. You know that you mean the world to me—” he tried to say before she cut him off.

  “No. I know that you care for me, Aeric. I just want to know: if Katie hadn’t gotten pregnant, would you have been with me?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “It’s really simple. Yes or no?”

  He thought about it. The thought of finding Veronica safe back in San Angelo had kept him moving forward all along the trip from Austin to Springfield and even after he’d begun sleeping with Kate again, the thought of Veronica pressed close to him like she was now had driven him along.

  Finally, he told her the truth. She wanted to know what he thought, and this
was unlikely to do anything except complicate his life more than it already was. “Yes. If you’d have had me, as hideously deformed as I am, then I would have absolutely been with you.”

  She let out her breath in an audible sigh. What does that mean? he asked himself frantically. She answered him by pulling his head down to hers and kissing him.

  TWO

  What the hell had he done? He’d told the truth and now he regretted it more and more with every rotation of his bicycle pedals as he made his way to the Provisions Warehouse. Veronica had asked him that if Katie wasn’t pregnant, would he have been with her instead. Stupid. He should have lied and told her that he was completely committed to Kate and had been since middle school.

  He had a mission to focus on; he couldn’t be sidetracked by his conversation about what could have been if things were different. And besides, what the hell had she meant when she said that she loved him and then followed that up with a kiss? Dammit!

  His Gathering Squad was going on a potentially dangerous mission. No one had really been beyond a twenty mile radius from San Angelo in over three months. The last small group of refugees that they’d let in had been in April—they were the ones who’d told Aeric about the warehouse in Garden City.

  He didn’t know how much Veronica or Katie knew about the world outside the walls that they’d constructed. It had gotten much worse than when they were out there as the winter went unnaturally long and people began to starve to death. He suspected that Veronica knew a lot more than she let on, though. Her father was the mayor of the town and she ran the city’s soup kitchen, so she interacted with everyone almost every day. She likely heard the darker tales that he tried to keep from her.

  The perimeter guards were notorious for embellishing their stories, so there was the hope that Veronica discarded what they said, however, it was unlikely. The way that she’d refused to let him go proved that she knew something was not right out in the wastes. The mutations in the remaining wildlife had gotten worse, while the showdowns with scavengers and raiders had gotten downright deadly.