The Day After Never (Book 1): Blood Honor

by Russell Blake

  “You should have seen the other guy.”

  She nodded. “Nice to see you back in one piece.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Any trouble?”

  “No more than expected.”

  “You eaten? Got some leftovers. Eve helped me make vegetable curry.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Sierra stood, Eve’s hand in hers, and joined them. “Thank God, Lucas. And thank you.”

  “More the former, I think,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

  He carried his tack into the cellar and then reemerged to cart Sierra’s in. Once the cellar door was closed, Ruby switched on a tiny LED lamp. “I took the liberty of going to the ranch and getting a few panels, the inverter, and a couple of batteries. Hope you don’t mind,” she said.

  “Not at all. Find anything else they missed?”

  “A few odds and ends.”

  “You’re welcome to them.”

  “This pot and the plates and silverware might look familiar.”

  “Not doing anything sitting in a cabinet.”

  They ate in near silence, and then Ruby put Eve to bed in the other room, which she’d tidied up and converted into passable sleeping quarters. Lucas laid a pair of bedrolls inside, said good night to Eve, and then returned to the outer room, where Sierra was helping Ruby.

  “You take your antibiotics?” he asked Sierra as he sat on one of Ruby’s collapsible camp chairs.

  Sierra nodded. “Of course.”

  “Good.” Lucas hesitated. “We got interrupted earlier. But we still need to talk.”

  Sierra uttered an exasperated sigh, but Lucas was having none of it. He fixed her with a hard stare. “You need to come clean, Sierra, or this is where we part ways. And frankly, I don’t much like your chances on your own. So you’re going to tell me everything, and I mean everything, or this party’s over. Clear?”

  Sierra looked over to Ruby, as though for support, but the older woman’s face could have been cast from iron. Sierra finished her task and then sat in one of the chairs facing Lucas.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Ruby looked over at them. “You can start with why Eve was equipped with a tracking device.”

  “She was?” Sierra exclaimed, her surprise appearing genuine.

  Lucas nodded. “Her bracelet.”

  Sierra’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my–”

  Lucas cut her off. “Ruby disarmed it, but you have some explaining to do.”

  Sierra closed her eyes, and when she opened them, there was no fight left in her. When she began speaking, her voice was tentative.

  “Eve’s a very special child.”

  Ruby smiled. “We know that.”

  “No. No, you don’t.” Her eyes searched Lucas’s face. “She’s one in a million. Maybe in hundreds of millions. They weren’t sure, or they never said.”

  “Who?”

  “The doctors working for Magnus.”

  “He has doctors?” Lucas asked.

  “He has everything. Engineers, doctors, scientists, you name it. Like I said, if you want to live, you work for him. If not, you’re just another body for the cremation pits.”

  “What were they doing, Sierra? These doctors?” Ruby asked, moving her chair next to Lucas and sitting down.

  “First off, you need to know about Eve’s background. Magnus found her in Vicksburg. He’d sent a trading party there, and when they arrived, the city was a mausoleum. Everyone was dead, except for Eve.”

  “Everyone dead? How?”

  “The doctors believe it’s a new, mutated variant of the flu. Far more lethal, if that’s even imaginable. Same basic mechanism as the original, only more contagious and with a much higher mortality rate.”

  Ruby’s face was white. “The original was like the Spanish flu. It triggered a cytokine storm in the body. That’s why the Spanish flu was so devastating to the general population and hit healthy people the hardest – the old and very young had weaker immune systems, but the healthy…they were the perfect hosts.”

  “Cytokine?” Lucas asked.

  Ruby nodded. “Turns the immune system against itself. It sends so many immune cells to fight infection in the lungs and airway that they swell to the point where they can’t function. We all saw it – people suffocating and drowning with no way to stop it. The stronger the immune system, the more lethal a cytokine storm is.”

  Sierra nodded. “That’s it exactly. Anyway, Eve was wandering the streets, crying, looking for her mother in a city of the dead.”

  “But I thought you said that the very young weren’t as affected by the virus,” Lucas countered. “So how was Eve unusual?”

  “In the Spanish flu and the last generation of this flu, that was true. But not the new one. It kills everybody just the same – at least, from what the doctors could tell. Only not Eve.” Sierra allowed that to sink in.

  Ruby held Sierra’s eyes. “I’ve heard rumors of a new virus. But I thought that’s all they were. You know how that goes; every day there’s a new one. Dime a dozen.”

  “This one’s true,” Sierra said. “The only reason it hasn’t killed everyone is that people aren’t traveling much anymore, and the ones who have it die before they can get very far. So it’s limited, for now. If there were still airplanes, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

  Ruby frowned. “Just when you think it can’t get any worse…”

  Lucas interrupted. “So they were trying to figure out how Eve survived. Why?”

  “To develop a vaccine.”

  “They have the ability to do that?” Lucas asked, surprised.

  “Vaccines have been around for centuries, Lucas,” Ruby said. “First one was smallpox – back, I think, around 1800. It’s not that technically sophisticated. You don’t need electron microscopes or anything. Properly educated scientists could do it, even under the present circumstances.” She paused. “But why would they need Eve after they’ve drawn her blood and gotten their samples? Wouldn’t that be enough?”

  Sierra shrugged. “I’m no scientist, but the way I understand it, there’s something about this virus and the way it mutates that makes Eve necessary for every step of the process. They weren’t able to develop it on their own, even with Eve’s blood, and they were still working on why. But they won’t give up until they figure it out and create the vaccine. That much I do know.”

  “Why is Magnus trying to create one?” Lucas asked. “He doesn’t strike me as the Good Samaritan type, from what you’ve been saying.”

  Sierra frowned. “Power. Wealth. Think about it. Whoever has a vaccine could dictate terms to everyone. They’d have the power to decide who lives and who dies. Theoretically, once a vaccine exists, they could deliberately infect areas that didn’t cooperate.” Sierra blinked rapidly, her chest rising and falling as she grew visibly agitated. “Magnus wants to run things. With the vaccine, he would have the power of a god.”

  They sat in silence, absorbing the implications: a madman capable of anything, with the power of life and death over the entire country, if not the world.

  “It really is the end of days,” Ruby said quietly.

  “Wait. How did you find Eve, if your sister died in Vicksburg, Sierra?” Lucas asked.

  Another long sigh from Sierra, and then she sat forward and locked eyes with him. “I’m not Eve’s real aunt.”

  Chapter 38

  “What?” Ruby cried, rising from her chair.

  “It’s not like that, Ruby,” Sierra insisted. “When they first brought Eve to Dallas, they needed someone to take care of her. That was a year and a half ago. They put me in charge of tending to her, keeping her company, teaching her. I called myself Aunt Sierra, and she just picked it up. But by now, I might as well be. I’m the only family she has. And…and I love her like she was my own.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “Isn’t that enough? Who cares whether we’ve got the same blood? She needs someone, and I’m her best hope.”

  Lucas n
odded. “Tell me about the escape. How did that happen?”

  “I told you we escaped from Dallas. That’s not completely true. I’m sorry I lied, but I…I didn’t completely trust you, and I was afraid you might sell us out or something.”

  Lucas’s expression darkened. “Sell you out? I saved you – not once, but twice, and Eve as well. Does that strike you as the kind of thing a sellout would do?”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly. But after all we’d been through… I mean, I was responsible for Eve. I had to be careful.”

  Lucas visibly struggled for composure. “Fine. Where did you escape from?”

  “Lubbock. We had been in Dallas, at the hospital there, but about eight months ago they moved us to Lubbock – they have a more advanced lab at the university medical center in town. Anyhow, I befriended one of the scientists, and over time, we got…close. He confided that he wasn’t working with Magnus voluntarily. His child was being used against him – blackmail. But he wasn’t an evil man, and he had contact with a resistance cell in Lubbock that had a link with some people out of the Crew’s territory – another group of doctors working toward the same goal, only not to extort power from what’s left of the world, but to develop a vaccine and give it to everyone. He contacted them and arranged for us to escape.” She exhaled hard. “He’s still there. Might be dead by now, for all I know.”

  “So what happened?”

  Sierra held Lucas’s stare. “Lucas, I had no idea that stupid bracelet was some kind of tracking device.”

  “I believe you. It would be counterproductive to escape, only to lead them straight to her.”

  “That’s right. Anyway, one night the scientist slipped me a note. I had ten minutes to make it to a laundry chute with Eve. The hospital is guarded like an army base, Lucas. So I woke her up and we left with just the clothes on our back. The men who died in that gulch, defending us, were from the resistance group.”

  “Where were they taking you?”

  “Shangri-La.”

  Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “You’re exhausting my patience, Sierra.”

  “No, that’s what they called it,” she insisted.

  “Shangri-La,” Ruby repeated. “Why?”

  “Because nobody knows exactly where it is. I don’t.”

  “But they did.”

  “Correct. But they never told me where we were going. Just to Shangri-La. Then they’d all laugh.”

  Lucas’s glare bored into her. “But what is it? What did they tell you about it?”

  “That it has power. And water. And that everyone there is God fearing and is working against the evil that the criminal gangs were inflicting on the country. They have a militia there – well armed and trained, apparently. And a doctor who’s trying to figure out how to save humanity. Eve’s the only survivor he’s heard of. So the plan was to bring her to him, along with the data the scientists in Lubbock had collected, so he could make a vaccine, assuming that’s even possible.”

  “What did your…friend…think?” Ruby asked.

  “He thought they were making progress, and that it looked good. Which was one of the reasons for the timing. They needed to get Eve away from Magnus’s group before he could finish the process, or…or we’d be living in a world shaped by one of the most sadistic men who’s ever lived.”

  “Where is this data?” Lucas demanded.

  “On a USB drive.”

  “They have operational computers in Lubbock, I take it?” Ruby said.

  “They do. They have power from a big wind farm outside of town they were able to connect up to and get operational again. They have everything electric-powered, at least for Magnus’s operation. The rest of the city lives without. See, that drives home the point to everyone else that the Crew is in charge and decides who suffers and who doesn’t. Same thing in Dallas, Houston, you name it. They’re in total control – you take one wrong step and they squash you like a bug.”

  “Where’s the USB drive now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lucas snorted. “That’s where this all leads? To a shoulder shrug and a blank look? Come on, Sierra.”

  “No, really. The leader of the militia group who was taking us to Shangri-La had it. Kept in in his tactical vest. His job was to defend it, and us, with his life. Which is what happened.”

  “Why not send a bigger group?”

  “We were supposed to meet up with one in another couple of days. They wanted to stay under the radar until they were out of Texas.”

  “And you have absolutely no idea where they were heading?”

  “I wish I did. But no, I don’t. The leader referred to a set of directions or something – he kept a note with the USB drive in an inside pocket of his tactical vest – but even with the directions, we’d have a pretty hard time finding the place without the help of someone who knew more.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I got a look at them once when he was cleaning off in the river. They were in some kind of code. Gibberish. I wish I knew how to find Shangri-La, Lucas. I really do. Because that sounds like the only place we’ll ever be safe.” She swallowed hard. “They’re never going to quit, Lucas. Magnus’s entire vision of the future depends on that vaccine and the power it will give him. Imagine him with the fate of the world in his hands. Imagine him with the keys to nukes.”

  “They can’t hurt you if they can’t find you.”

  “They’ll find us,” Sierra stated flatly. “You don’t know these people. They have no choice.”

  “Nothing is inevitable, Sierra.”

  Her brow furrowed. “I believe in destiny, Lucas.”

  “Believe in whatever you want, but I’ve never been good at quitting.”

  Sierra appraised him. “So I see.” She paused for a moment, working something out. “We need to find that USB drive – even if the note’s in some kind of code, we might be able to figure it out. That’s our only hope. Are the bodies still in the gulch?” she asked.

  “They’d been stripped. A tactical vest has value. Someone took their clothes.”

  “Then we’re screwed,” Sierra said simply.

  Lucas studied his boots. “Let me think on that some.”

  “What’s your background, Sierra?” Ruby asked, changing the subject.

  “I was in high school when the flu hit. My mom was a teacher, my dad in construction.”

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “Nobody alive.” She winced as she touched her bandaged shoulder. “So that’s my story. Now you know the whole thing. Not that it’s going to change anything.”

  “You leave anything out?” Lucas asked.

  “What would be the point?”

  “How did they select you to care for Eve, Sierra?” Ruby asked. “In the first place, I mean.”

  “I’m good with kids. I caught someone’s eye. Kismet. Fate. Who knows?”

  “That’s it?”

  “If I sat around trying to figure out why everything’s happened to me, I’d drive myself mad. I got picked. Could have been anyone else. I’m not sure I understand – what’s the difference?”

  Ruby shrugged. “Just a question.”

  “The important thing is that we need to find the vest and see if we can figure out what the note says. Lucas, what do you think?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I think I haven’t slept for days, and I’m not going to discuss going back into harm’s way half-cocked. That’s a good way to get killed.”

  “But you have to,” Sierra protested.

  Lucas held her stare. “I don’t have to do anything. Let’s be real clear on that. I’ve done what I have because I chose to, but nobody tells me what I do or don’t need to do.”

  “I…I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “None taken. We’re all tired.”

  Sierra yawned. “Can we continue this tomorrow? I’m falling asleep on my feet, too. I’m really grateful for everything you’ve both done. Especially you, Lucas.” Her blue eye
s seemed to look deep inside him. “You’re a good man.”

  Lucas and Ruby watched her make her way to the sleeping room, and when she was gone, exchanged a glance.

  “You believe her?” Ruby whispered.

  “Mostly.”

  Ruby sat back and considered Lucas with a knowing expression. “She’s an attractive young woman, isn’t she?”

  “Not hard to look at,” Lucas acceded.

  “And not the kind of girl who takes no for an answer, Lucas. A woman can sense these things. And the way she looks at you…”

  Lucas averted his eyes. “She’s grateful I saved her life. Don’t make it more than it is.”

  Ruby smiled. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  “Gave up wishing a while ago.”

  Her smile faded into a serious expression. “What are you going to do?”

  Lucas studied his dusty boots with a weary sigh.

  “Beats me.”

  Chapter 39

  Garret sat hunched in front of a shortwave radio, waiting for Magnus. He was dreading the discussion, which might easily conclude with Magnus ordering his execution. It wouldn’t be the first time the Crew leader had eliminated a subordinate who’d disappointed him. Garret would have to read between the lines, gauge what was said and what wasn’t, to understand whether he was a dead man already or might live. Magnus wouldn’t tell him, of course, and part of the complication of the exchange would be that Magnus was a master at masking his true intentions.

  Garret had ordered everyone from the room in anticipation of the unpleasantness to come. He couldn’t afford to lose perceived authority in front of the Locos. They were already reeling from the effective destruction of their cartel, and the last thing he needed was for one of them to overhear his rendition of the true nature of what had occurred – and to blame him.

  He blinked away fatigue and stared through the window at the stars. They’d searched for tracks half the day, but had come up empty. Garret’s return to Pecos had been a somber one, with dread in every step, the men exhausted and their horses spent.

  The radio hissed and crackled like a living thing, and then the Houston operator’s voice emanated from the speakers.