[The Remnants 01.0] Ashes of the Fall

by Nicholas Erik

  With biceps bigger than my chest, he’s the kind of guy you listen to. I nod and watch as he gets in the cab. Adriana goes around the other side, walking with a slight limp.

  Slick notices me watching her and says, “See. You should be glad you chose to puke your guts out, bud.”

  Yeah, ’cause being able-bodied means going out the Lost Plains, instead of staying safely within the confines of a truck. But I don’t say anything, because no one wants to hear it. Step one of rehabilitation is adjusting to the new parameters and finding a loophole that I can exploit to my advantage.

  I can do that.

  Kid heads around to the back and lifts up the black canvas. “We’re riding back here. Hope you dressed warm.”

  I didn’t, but I climb up behind him without a word. Then the truck revs up and bounces off toward the wastes, as I sit, teeth chattering, huffing diesel fumes, not even knowing what I’m going to die for.

  17 On the Road

  Kid Vegas isn’t feeling chatty, so I’m left with just my thoughts during the endless journey. I figure out around the first half hour that the truck’s shock absorbers desperately need replacing. My tailbone takes a beating from every pothole.

  For all I know, maybe Slick’s sending us out to get spare parts.

  Through a tear in the canvas, I can see the barren landscape gradually transform. Little flecks of green, a tree or the occasional stunted shrub. As we get further out from the epicenter of Damien Ford’s maelstrom of destruction, the world takes on a little color.

  But it still looks bleak as hell.

  “We’re nearing the Lost Plains now,” Jackson’s gruff voice announces over the rusted loudspeaker hanging in the corner. I wonder why he doesn’t just call out the window. It kind of seems like overkill. “It might say Otherlands on the map, but borders don’t mean shit out here. Keep your guns loaded.”

  I look down at the .38 strapped to my hip and think back to the barrage on the Hyperloop. Whatever the hell this pistol is gonna do against the heat the outlaws are packing out here, I’m not optimistic. At least they trusted me with a gun. Hell, Slick could’ve forced me to go full-on scout mode, no firearms at all. Wouldn’t blame him, either, because the old barrel-chested fella has to know that I’m looking for any out I can find. He’s probably trusting that the alternatives leave me worse off. It’s not like there’s a National Hall in the middle of the Lost Plains, just waiting for me to stake a claim.

  It’d be nice if people trusted me with the actual details of the operation, what we’re trying retrieve out here—but that’s the problem with being a liar and having everyone know it. Trust is already difficult to gain without worrying about prior reputation.

  I consider Blackstone’s letter, and how I’m gonna play that—if I stick around for the long haul. Sure, I can give Blackstone whatever he needs to know about the girl—Carina was nice enough, but I have no love for those Lionhearted idiots. But the second half of the deal is a non-starter. Even I can’t convince an incensed, terrified public that I’m a good man. One, because I’m not—although I’ll gladly tell others I am. But two is the more pressing concern—there is no evidence contradicting that I killed Matt.

  His body is gone.

  The murder weapon was found with Olivia Redmond, who testified that I brought it inside her apartment and threatened her with it. That testimony is on record, and she can’t exactly recant without ending up in a cozy dungeon herself. And that would be if the gallows were full on that particular afternoon.

  There’s also no security footage of his death to prove that he committed suicide.

  In short, I look very guilty—even without Tanner’s spin about being a threat to peace and order. You could argue that I owe it to Matt to figure it out. But I could argue—compellingly, I might add—that my brother owed me the courtesy of not seeing his brains spilling out on the kitchen floor.

  At the very least, Matt owed me an explanation to my face. Trusting that I didn’t have to be tricked and tested and dragged into seeing what was right. Then again, I’m still trying to run—so obviously that wasn’t an option.

  The truck rolls to a stop. My tailbone aches, but I like this development even less.

  “The hell we doing stopping here,” I say.

  Kid says, “I figure we’ll get an update—”

  The loudspeaker cuts on, Jackson’s voice blasting through the stillness. “Burnt out wrecks on the road ahead. Can’t go off-road through the dirt ’cause it rained a day ago. Gotta move the cars.”

  With a stiff gait, I climb down to the broken pavement. Miles of empty land, broken highway barriers and cracked asphalt stretch on from where we just came. Sparse tree husks line the side of the road. But if there was a forest there once, it isn’t there now.

  Sun’s shining hard, enough that I have to cup my hand over my eyes. I step around the truck to check on the situation. A couple dozen cars are scattered in the middle of the road. We’ll have to move a bunch of them to get by. They don’t look abandoned—fifty yards ahead, the road is clear.

  A dull nervousness taps at the bottom of my chest. Someone put them here on purpose. They’re parked at odd angles, arranged in such a fashion that it wouldn’t be possible to barrel through. I pass by the grille of the truck, where Jackson is already working with the winch, clipping a long steel cable to the bumper of a rusted sedan.

  He seems to have everything under control, so I walk a hundred yards ahead, where the road is empty again, to a faded green mile marker, half the paint stripped bare to silver nakedness.

  It says Nashville 25 Miles.

  “Hey,” Jackson yells, “don’t go wandering off.” Says it like there’s something hiding in the empty plains. That makes me even more nervous—that someone or something could hide out here, among the nothingness.

  I walk back, watch as Adriana throws the truck in reverse, dragging the first car out of the way. She takes it a couple hundred yards back, leaving me alone with Jackson. Kid must be uninterested in supervising, since he’s still in the back.

  Jackson skins an apple while we wait. The winch disengages and the car’s back wheels drop to the ground in a plume of dust.

  “How far?” I ask.

  “We’re already here,” he says. “We’re going to Nashville, Golden Boy. Or somewhere thereabouts. Land of country and heartbreak.”

  “That’s still the Otherlands,” I say. “Officially speaking.”

  “There’s no North, South, East, West any more with what’s going on. They never existed in the first place. They were all up here.” He points to the middle of his massive head with the tip of his knife.

  “What’s in Nashville?”

  “Why,” he says, “you trying to get a record deal?” He eats half the apple in one bite, giving me a grin, then leans off the hood, heading to greet Adriana again.

  Each winching unfolds in the same mundane fashion. By the time noon rolls around, the sun is blazing above, sweat dripping down my back. Better than the seat digging into my tailbone.

  I try to help a couple times, but Jackson shoves me away, tells me I’m just wasting his energy. Instead, I’m told to keep an eye on the horizon, all around. No one even gives me a pair of binoculars to play watchdog with. So I spend two hours with my thumb stuck up my ass. There’s at least two cars to go before we can push through.

  “How much longer?” I yell at Jackson, who’s cabling up a minivan. I’ve pretty much given up on watching the horizon. Whoever set up this trap must be long dead or far away.

  “You got somewhere to be, Golden Boy?”

  “Quit calling me that.”

  “You gonna come over here and stop me?”

  I silently fume and then say, “Just give me an ETA.”

  “When it’s done, it’s done.”

  “Come on man,” I say, getting off the back of the truck to stretch my legs, “you won’t let me help, you won’t tell me what’s going on—” I stop, peering off into the distance, past the remaining ca
rs. Could’ve sworn I saw the glint of a mirror or glass. I stand still, staring off into space, but can’t see it again.

  “You see something, Golden Boy?” Jackson says, as Adriana backs up the truck. The busted wheel well on the minivan scrapes against the pavement, leaving a deep gouge. Over the racket, I think I hear a gentle thrum.

  I turn back to the horizon, looking past the mile marker, which is when I see the flash again. This time, it’s no mistake—a dust cloud moving our way, maybe a mile and a half off.

  “Shit,” I yell at Jackson, who has his back turned while he surveys the truck’s backward progress, “they’re coming.”

  “Christmas comes early,” Jackson says, cool as can be, and brings up both his hands. Instantly, Adriana cuts bait with the van. It slams to the ground. “You better not stand there, you want to live.”

  Engines growl in the distance, but I don’t turn around. I haul ass, covering the thirty yards separating me and the truck in world record time. Jackson is already pressing buttons on the truck’s dashboard as I race up.

  “What’s the plan?” I ask.

  “Shoot them before they shoot you,” he says. A red button is pressed, and a gun turret slowly emerges from the top of the truck. Two of them, in fact. From Jackson’s detached, deliberate air—Adriana’s, too—I figure it out.

  They’re turning this ambush on its head. We probably could have plowed through an hour ago, but that wouldn’t have given any time for whatever scout watches this trap to jet back and report to his leaders.

  When I head to the back of the truck and look beneath the canvas, Kid is still in the same spot I left him. He cleans his pistol with a rag, polishing the barrel to a shine.

  “Someone is gonna tell me what’s going on,” I say.

  “You ever stop and think,” Kid says. “That maybe it’s a test.”

  “Getting shot in the middle of a dustbowl is a test? Forget that. I steal from people.”

  “Tanner says you shoot them, too. Family, even.”

  “Man, fuck you.” I clear the .38 from its holster and check the ammo. I got spare rounds in my pockets, but last time I shot one of these had to be when I was a kid. Personal firearms aren’t legal in Circle controlled areas, and it was just too much potential heat to be packing.

  Words are better than guns, anyway. Apparently the inhabitants of the Lost Plains don’t subscribe to that philosophy.

  “Relax,” Kid says. “You die out here, it’ll be over like that.” He pops a clip into his own pistol and racks the slide for emphasis. Then he hops down from the truck to stand next to me.

  The roar of the engines reaches a crescendo, before abruptly cutting off. I peek around the edge of the canvas flaps, up ahead. Men dressed in head-to-toe nomadic Bedouin-esque garb take cover behind their vehicles.

  I hear Adriana yell, “Missile launcher, three o’clock.” I watch as a man stands up, about to fire an RPG at the truck. Then an angry burst screams out from our side, shells clink-clink-clinking against the pavement as Jackson unloads on the threat. The would-be grenadier collapses in a burst of pink mist.

  For added emphasis, he apparently clamps down on the trigger with his last breath. Two of the cars—there must be a fleet of half a dozen, plus bikes—are engulfed in flames. I hear screams, panicked yells. Engines firing up.

  They’re already trying to get the hell out of Dodge.

  I glance at Kid, who nods silently. We won’t even have to fire a shot. A few scattered bursts of distant machine-gun fire come toward the truck, but they’re silenced by the lion’s growl of Jackson’s turret, which keeps going, going, until a click-click indicates it’s run empty.

  “He’s out of bullets,” I say, almost thankful the barrage is done. I’m done worrying about my own safety and on to bigger and grander things—like what this world is going to be like.

  Nasty, brutish and short indeed.

  I venture another glance and am greeted by haze of orange flame and smoke. The attacking vehicles are peppered with bullet holes, some of them scorched by the accidentally detonated rocket. Four of the six don’t move, with bodies either nearby or inside.

  Fifty feet ahead, the survivors limp away on flat tires, rims tearing into the ground as the desperate men inside urge their wounded vehicles onward.

  As I watch, a distinct whistling makes my head prick up. A missile screams out across the ruined expanse, parting the smoke before hitting the road with a fiery explosion. A rain of vehicle parts and asphalt cascades down from the gray sky.

  There’s a long pause, punctuated only by the crackle of flame and the groan of warped metal. Then, the turret slowly disengages and retracts. Boots on the ground—a heavy step. The spinning of a revolver’s chambers.

  “Come on,” Kid says, “let’s see what we caught in the net.”

  Acidic smoke and burnt flesh makes my eyes water. I bury my head in my arm and push forward, occasionally stumbling on debris. When the heat and flames from the ruined cars subside, I open my eyes again.

  Thirty feet ahead, a similarly grim scene greets me. Jackson walks out from the flames, dragging two bodies—one in each arm—along the ruined road. Both weakly struggle against their captor.

  I swallow hard, tasting grit and ash, hand on the .38.

  He lets go and one guy tries to scramble away. But Jackson stamps his boot right down on the man’s shin so hard that the bone cracks. I can see the other person is a woman, her clothes blackened by the flame. She doesn’t try to escape. Whether she’s too hurt or has resigned herself to her fate, I don’t know.

  “Tell me where Vlad is,” Jackson says. “He has something we need.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” the man says.

  “Wrong answer.” Without hesitation, Jackson puts the revolver to the man’s head and pulls the trigger. I recoil at the brutality, wincing.

  When I glance over, I see Kid giving me a funny look.

  “That’s the way things are gonna be now, Luke,” he says. “You’d best get used to it. No MILFs out here.”

  I say nothing and watch as Jackson turns his attention to the second prisoner. She murmurs slightly at the sight of the gun.

  “You’re gonna tell me you don’t know Vlad?”

  In a raspy croak already near death, she says, “You’ll kill me anyway.”

  “Your choice whether I leave you out here for the crows to get you while you’re still alive,” Jackson says.

  What a deal.

  “He’s at the old FEMA camp,” she says, coughing, struggling to get the words out.

  “What building,” Jackson says. “Those birds can get nasty when they’re hungry.”

  “You think I care?”

  “If you won’t tell me exactly where he is, maybe you can tell me if Vlad’s got what we came lookin’ for.”

  “Absolution?”

  “Oh, I see, we’re making jokes, now.” He points the revolver at her knee and fires. She screams. If there were any crows around, they’ve all fled. No living creature wants to be around a noise like that. “Does he have the drive?”

  She’s fighting back tears from the pain now, but still defiant. “It doesn’t matter what I say to you.”

  “Your choice,” Jackson says, beginning to walk away. “You tell me if Vlad has the drive, though, I’ll change my mind and you can go quick.”

  There’s a long pause, and then the woman calls out, “He’s got it. HIVE, or something? A man gave it to Vlad a week before the ash fall. Said it would unite the factions. That’s all I know.”

  Jackson keeps walking, a grim, knowing smile pursing his lips. He passes me and Kid without a word, heading back to the truck.

  The woman screams. “You promised. Come back here, you son of a bitch, you promised.”

  That’s when I decide I’ve had enough. Before I can think, the .38’s cleared the holster, those ancient lessons with Pops coming back to me. I point it at the back of Jackson’s head and I pull the trigger.

  And Jackson crumbles fa
ce first into the dusty ground.

  18 Convoy

  Kid’s stunned, not quite convinced he’s seeing things correctly. I train the gun on him.

  “Drop it,” I say.

  He looks at me like he’s not sure what to make of it. “I’d say you wouldn’t shoot, Stokes, but goddamn.”

  “He was a son-of-a-bitch,” I say. “You gonna tell me what we’re doing out here?”

  “You gonna kill me to find out?” I pump a shot into the ground and he jumps a little. Drops the weapon.

  “Kick it over.”

  Kid complies.

  “The hell is going on out here,” I hear Adriana yell. She’s somewhere in the smoky maelstrom of the ambush gone wrong, brought out of the truck by—what? There was already shooting. I glance down at my gun, then at Jackson’s, lying on the ground beside him. His is a .45, a big booming motherfucker.

  She’s out here wondering why I’m doing any shooting at all.

  “Jack,” Adriana yells, “give me an update, Jackie.”

  I hold my gun steady with both hands, aiming clear down the sights, waiting. She emerges from the smoke, her own gun out, but at her hip, not ready.

  I squeeze the trigger, her leg buckles and she falls down.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she yells.

  “You’re gonna tell me what we’re doing,” I say.

  She reaches for her gun and I fire a warning shot. She decides to resume clutching her leg and gritting her teeth in agony.

  “You’re gonna die,” she says. “We don’t kill you, the Remnants will.” There’s groaning in the background. The injured woman is still alive. “You’re upset because that Rem freak got shot? You should see what they do to the survivors cutting across the Lost Plains.”

  “She’s a person,” I say, briefly wondering why it bothers me so damn much.

  “They aren’t people,” Adriana says with a harsh snort, “the number of ours they killed, when we were trying to escape the ash...” She gasps sharply from the pain, then hisses between clenched teeth, “The Rems are goddamn monsters.”