Last City: Book 1 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (The Last City - Book 1)

by Kevin Partner

  She left just after the sun rose, striding along the Cedar Run Road as if trying to outpace the dead hand of guilt that would pull her back to the house. She hadn't said goodbye, and she knew that Margie would be inconsolable. Briefly, she'd thought about bringing Margie along to see whether Gideon's people would take her in, but the risk was far too great. If they refused—and she suspected they would—what would she do then? She'd be forced to return to the house and face Amanda and Jerry. No, it was better this way. She could cope with feeling guilty if it meant she achieved her freedom. Didn't she have the right to put herself first? She'd found them a relatively safe place and she would, after all, return at some point. Wouldn't she?

  She took a left onto Junction Road, crossed over the creek and then turned left again along a dirt track that plunged into a dense, leafless forest following the stream until she saw the summer house on the other side. She thought she caught sight of Margie moving through the rooms on the first story—perhaps looking for her—but she turned her back on the house and headed into the trees, walking toward the fire.

  #

  Rusty Kaminski wasn't exactly great company, but beggars couldn't be choosers and so Paul Hickman encouraged the silly old fool when he seemed to be in a talkative mood. Kaminski sat in an old wooden chair beside the window looking out onto the dark main street while Hickman stood with his hands around the bars of his cell.

  They'd chatted about this and that. He'd let Kaminski bore him with stories of his life and how he regretted being the cause of his wife walking out on him. Two decades ago.

  Having served his penance, he decided it was time to tug on a string. "How's Elwood? I don't imagine he's any more appreciative of his visitors."

  "Eh? No, I don't s'pose he is at that. Truth be told, I haven't given him too much thought."

  "Enough problems of your own?"

  Rusty's head snapped around. Careful, Paul. He's not as dumb as he looks. But as quickly as it appeared, the suspicion evaporated to be replaced by … what? Anger? Frustration? Impotence?

  "Yeah, well. You know I'm not one to criticize Gil. Tough decision and all that. Glad I didn't have to make it."

  For once, Paul Hickman realized in time that this was one occasion when it was better not to say anything. The catfish was nibbling the bait. Patience.

  Sure enough, Kaminski felt the need to fill the silence. "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile."

  "What d'you mean?"

  Rusty Kaminski resumed monitoring the street outside. "Well, some of that so-called captain's boys have taken to coming into town and drinking at Ali's. Last night they came in, a truckload of them. Had complaints this morning."

  "What did they do?"

  "You mean apart from drinking Ali out of Jack Daniel’s? That's enough to cause a riot on its own. But no, there's more to it. They came in with a bad attitude, almost like they's the occupying force and we're the natives they've come to liberate. Almost like we owe them thanks; like we owe 'em a favor."

  Hickman watched Kaminski as he gazed out into the darkness. "Tell me you haven't posted Ned Birkett in there to keep an eye on them."

  Kaminski's head snapped back in Hickman's direction, but this time any anger was gone an instant after it registered. "Look, Paul, I know you got a beef with Ned, but he's still the only actual cop in this town."

  "Then God help us all. You just sent a diabetic to guard the sweet shop."

  He'd gone too far. "Now just you watch your mouth. I ain't got time for this." Rusty turned away from the window and strode toward the door as it burst open and a red-faced Ned Birkett ran panting into the room, almost colliding with the sheriff.

  "There's trouble brewin', boss. Down at Ali's."

  Kaminski pushed Birkett away. "Have you been drinking, Ned?"

  "Just a little. I had to blend in, didn't I? Ev'rone else was drinkin'."

  Rusty Kaminski regarded Birkett, shaking his head. "Jeez, Ned. You're the only trained cop we got and you're boiled as an owl. I don't have time to get Jenson and I sent Linda off in the squad car to patrol the highway."

  "I'm a sworn-in deputy," Hickman said.

  "You? You're in jail!"

  "So, let me out. Look, Rusty, I want to help. Think what you like, but I'm right about kowtowing to these thugs and I don't want 'em taking over any more than you do." He sighed as Kaminski stared at him. "If it helps, I promise to surrender myself afterward. Come on, Rusty, we ain't got time."

  "Boss, there ain't no need! I'm perfec'ly fine. You don't wanna go lettin' him out against the mayor's orders … "

  Rusty Kaminski looked from one to the other and then back again. Paul Hickman wanted to cry out, to plead his case, but he kept his big mouth shut and waited for the dice to stop rolling.

  Kaminski stepped toward Hickman's cell.

  Boxcars.

  Paul Hickman didn't hold with swearing out loud, so he afterwards described what he saw when he followed Rusty Kaminski into Hope Bar as a cluster fudge of epic proportions. Kaminski had given him Ned Birkett's jacket and badge. Hickman was a fastidiously clean and hygienic man, so wearing the sweat-stained and liquor-impregnated clothes of a man he swore to be revenged on took a level of self-control that surprised even him.

  Ali Parveen was leaning over the counter and gesturing to a group of three camouflage-clad men as another, larger, group surrounded the pool table. Parveen looked across as Kaminski and Hickman entered, an expression of relief relaxing his bearded face as he recognized them.

  "Ah, Sheriff! Come and explain to these … men that I don't have a secret supply of bourbon that I keep for locals. I am all out."

  Kaminski sidled up to the group of three as Hickman took up position next to him. "Now what's this all about? Our agreement with your captain didn't include you comin' into town looking for trouble."

  Subtle as an angry skunk, Hickman thought.

  "You look here, Sheriff," the man in the middle of the group said in a thick South African accent. "We haven't come here looking for trouble, right? We're just asking this gentleman whether he has any more Jack Daniel’s like he gave to our friends over there."

  "And the answer's no. Are you the ranking officer here?"

  The man shrugged. "What of it? My name's Jako Stevens and I was a Warrant Officer in the South African Police Service."

  "Then I suggest you keep your men in order, Mr. Stevens." Kaminski said, gesturing over at the group around the pool table.

  "Them? They're just blowing off some, Sheriff. This is the first chance they've had to relax a little. You don't know what it's like out there."

  Rusty shook his head. "I do, as it happens. And blowing off steam is fine, but you gotta remember whose town this is, whose bar this is. Don't step out of line."

  Stevens blinked back at the sheriff, looked from him to Hickman and smiled, exposing a gold canine. "Sure, Sheriff." He might as well have asked what the two of them were going to do about it if his men violated the order.

  "Hey! Get your hands off her!"

  Hickman snapped around. That voice was familiar. Brain! He was shaking his fist at a burly man in uniform who had hold of a woman with her back to the bar.

  Ali ran around from behind the bar, pulling a baseball bat from below the countertop, but before he could reach the group, another figure had sprung up from behind Brain and, with a single efficient swing, decked the militiaman.

  The woman—a trim blonde in her middle years wearing a server's apron—spun away, disgust on her face, as the other members of the group rounded on her rescuer, Brain and his knight in shining armor … Marlin Cook. Hickman's prospective protege disappeared under a couple of khaki shirts.

  Paul Hickman was not a bruised knuckles and split lip kind of a guy, but he followed Rusty into the melee, heading for Marlin's attackers. He grabbed the nearest shirt and pulled the collar backwards, lifting the man up and off Marlin, who flailed like a drowning man breaking the surface. Hickman kicked the militiaman in the groin with all his migh
t, wincing as he connected, then helped Marlin to his feet.

  Marlin gave a sly smile and a nod, then kicked his other opponent in the head and reached down to pull a dagger from its sheath in the man's boot. For a moment, Paul thought he was going to stab his prone victim, but instead he stood up, and searched the melee before heading toward where Brain was scuffling with a lean and mean-looking man half his age. The man pushed Brain to the floor and lunged for the barmaid, a knife flashing in his hand.

  Marlin flew past Brain as Hickman called out a warning to the woman. The attacker spun around and swung the blade at Marlin—perhaps it was just a reflex, but Paul had seen that look before, that killing look. He'd seen it in the mirror.

  But Marlin was too fast. The dagger blurred and, with a shriek, the attacker stumbled back, metal sticking out of his chest. He was a dead man staggering, and Hickman knew instantly that Cook was now in mortal danger.

  Marlin caught the waitress and handed her to Ali, who had carved a path with his bat, but a few seconds too late.

  Suddenly, blades were everywhere, people were yelling, more blood was inevitable.

  Bang.

  Rusty Kaminski stood with his sidearm pointing at the ceiling as dust and fragments of plaster floated down through the beer and testosterone-saturated atmosphere. "No one move."

  Hickman looked around the bar. It was deserted except for those who'd been actively involved in the fight.

  "I said, don't move!" Kaminski said, swiveling his shooting arm at the South African who was reaching inside his jacket.

  Hickman's heart raced as the stabbed man moaned under the pool table. He wondered how many of these militia had concealed firearms and how fast Rusty's reactions were.

  "You …" Stevens said before swearing under his breath. "If that man dies, there is going to be retribution, you mark my words."

  The door to the bar swung open and Hick turned to see Gil Summers entering, like a second-rate Paul Newman framed against the darkness beyond. Beside him stood Martha Bowie and her son, in his deputy uniform, both holding shotguns that quickly found marks among the militia.

  Doctor Pishar pushed his way through and kneeled beside the injured militia man, whose moans had ebbed away. Hickman could see that the man was lying in a slick of blood that was spreading across the worn floorboards.

  "Severed aorta," Pishar said without looking up. "There's nothing I can do."

  As if in answer, the stricken figure sighed and then was silent. He lay with that unmistakable stillness of a body after the soul has flown, surrounded by both friends and enemies, all of them waiting for the shoe to drop.

  "Mr. Stevens, who did this?"

  Clay Hemmerich had appeared at the door flanked by two bodyguards each carrying assault rifles.

  All the bravado vanished from the face of Stevens as he pointed at Marlin Cook. "It was him, Captain. Totally unprovoked."

  A roar went up; one side protesting, the other in pure anger. Rusty raised his firearm again. "Silence!"

  In the quiet that followed, Hickman heard Hemmerich say, in a voice of contained rage, "I expect that man to be thrown in jail and in the morning, we will have a hearing. Tomorrow evening, he will hang."

  17: Carpe Diem

  Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus. They'd seen enough ruined cities that Devon was determined to go around Philadelphia, however many miles that added to their journey. Since the attack at the gas station, they'd had the devil's own luck, or so it seemed. They'd met few vehicles on the roads—all except their CRV being old models and downright junk heaps—though as they traveled east, they came across more and more people walking. Most were heading the same way, though Devon, Jessie and Marianna never stopped to ask them questions. However much pity they felt for those poor souls, they had a mission to accomplish and their encounter with the terrorists had spooked all of them.

  Terrorists. Yes, that had seemed to be the answer when they'd examined the one who'd grabbed Marianna. He hadn't had the stomach to remove the remains of the balaclava that covered the dead man's ruined head, so he'd concentrated on what he could see of the man's chest as he pulled aside his jacket. His brown-with-a-hint-of-olive complexion left Devon in no doubt that he was Middle Eastern, nicely feeding into his experience and prejudice.

  But the other two were different. He'd left Jessie and Marianna to comfort each other while he, with shaking hands and thumping heart, pulled the headscarf off the second shooter. It was a woman with short brown hair and pale skin. Clearly Caucasian, she would have melted into the crowd in the least diverse town in the country. She might have just come from choir practice and her eyes looked up at him in silent accusation, so he closed them before moving to the final body. This was of a man about the same age as the woman and he wondered if they had been a couple. His skin was a little darker than hers, but there was no reason to think that either were anything other than good ol' US of A born and bred. He felt in the pockets of the man's dark blue denim jeans. The ID card in his wallet said he was Simon Pietersen from Nashville. It was an RFID card imprinted with Ecotech Solutions and Software Engineer.

  Devon had pocketed the wallet but found nothing on the woman's body to identify her, so he'd gone back to Marianna and Jessie. He didn't blame them for the state they were in. Both had killed someone for the first time—or he presumed so. Both had nearly died. He was shaken up too, but a decade in the Anti-Terror Squad meant he could handle and recover from a near-death experience much more quickly than the average Joe. Or, at least, he liked to think so. He had learned to package up nightmares and lock them away in a mental safety deposit box. He just hoped he never had to open any of them up again.

  Two full days had passed since then and Jessie had barely spoken to him. Marianna, on the other hand, had hardly stopped talking since the initial shock wore off. Devon wasn't sure which he preferred, but he certainly didn't want to be alone with his own thoughts, so he encouraged Marianna. She seemed to need it, even though the conversation moved from the trivial to the profound at random.

  Perhaps the strangest miracle of the past days had been that working gas stations had turned up every couple of hundred miles. He'd been doing all the driving—keeping his hands working so his mind didn't do too much thinking—and he was now alert in case the same thing happened again. Twice, he'd caught sight of movement before he pulled in, but twice more there had been no sign of anyone and they were able to use the manual pump Mariana's father had given them to fill up and get away.

  He reckoned they had enough now to get them to this summer house. And it was getting close to the point where Jessie was needed so, as they sat in the garage of a burned-out house north of Trenton, he took her hand.

  "How are you doing?"

  She'd been staring at their camping stove's blue flame and when she turned her head his way, he saw that her eyes were moist. The Jessie Summers he'd fallen in love with a few weeks—a lifetime—ago was missing in action. He knew nothing about cosmetics and make-up, but the perfectly constructed complexion and shades of gray and red had all been swept away by tears and lack of care. The old Jessie Summers had gone, but what he saw revealed in the blotches and lines around her eyes and the faint freckles on her cheek, somehow drew him to her, human to human, as if a protective gate had been opened and he was seeing her for the first time.

  "I should never have come," she said, finally. "I wanted nothing more than to get away from that place; to get my head right so I could face my father and tell him about what I'd done. Now, all I want is to be back there."

  He squeezed her hand. "Yeah, I feel the same way."

  "You didn't want me to come?"

  "That's not what I meant," he said. "But I do wish you were back there and safe. I wish we both were."

  He leaned back against the grubby wall of the garage and chuckled.

  "What's funny?"

  "I was just thinking about Paul Hickman; wondering what he's doing right now. Probably lording it over Hope, nice and comfortabl
e while we do his dirty work. I wish I'd had the balls to tell him where he could stick his threats. Somehow, sitting here, none of the BS he had on me seems so important."

  She wrapped her other hand around his. "But that's not why you came, was it?"

  "What d'you mean?"

  "You came on this journey because of me."

  He looked across at Marianna, who lay curled up, fast asleep. "Maybe."

  "You thought about all those nights on your own with me, didn't you?"

  "No!" Then he saw her face, saw her smile. "Well, yeah, maybe a bit. But not now."

  Jessie pulled herself close to him. "It's okay. I'm not exactly a catch anymore, am I?"

  "Course you are."

  They sat like that for what seemed like hours, each bathing in the warmth of a human connection. Two travelers with no one but each other. And, of course, Marianna.

  "I killed someone, Dev. I can't get it out of my head."

  "I know."

  "Have you killed anyone?"

  "Yeah."

  "How did you deal with it?"

  "I never did, really. Never have. I just put it away and try not to think about it. Carpe diem. But I'm crap at living in the moment. Always worrying about the future and regretting the past. Coming to Hope was my chance at starting afresh when I found out what had happened to my dad."

  "Be careful what you wish for."

  "Yeah."

  Again, they wrapped themselves in silence, both staring at the flickering gas light, though Devon was beginning to get twitchy about how much propane they had left so he knew he'd have to turn it off soon. Somehow, the prospect of the dark had become more inviting.

  "What's with you two?" Marianna asked as she watched Devon warming up some beans to go with their coffee.

  "What d'you mean?"

  "What's there to smile about?"

  Devon and Jessie exchanged glances and Marianna colored instantly. "Oh!"

  "No!" Jessie yelled, shaking her head. "Not that! We just talked!"

  Marianna nodded and looked away. Devon felt for her. So young, so sheltered and so burdened. Who could she confide in? Who could she tell that she'd killed a man? What had her father been thinking of when he sent her away? Devon stirred the beans as he wondered what they would find when they returned to Salt Lake City. If they returned.