The Day After Never Bundle (First 4 novels)

by Russell Blake

  “This place is giving me the willies,” Colt muttered.

  “Yeah. My spidey sense is tingling,” Arnold agreed.

  “But I don’t see anything.”

  Arnold smiled humorlessly and looked around. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

  The pavement was hard on the horses’ hooves, limiting their speed to a slow walk, and by the time they reached the eastern edge of the city, the afternoon sun was sinking behind them. Lucas checked his watch again, did a quick reckoning, and twisted to Arnold.

  “Probably got a couple more hours before it gets dark. We’ll want to stay off the road once we’re outside the city limits.”

  “I won’t fight you on that, but I want to keep going as long as we can.”

  “I know. But if we find something defendable, we should make camp there. The ex-Crew guy warned us about the scavenger cult – the Bones. After seeing their work, I don’t want to cross paths with them.”

  Arnold’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s see what happens.”

  “Go ahead and take the lead, then. This is your show.”

  “We’re all in the soup together until we get to Springfield,” Arnold corrected. “But I’ll ride point. Colt?”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Colt said.

  Lucas allowed Arnold and Colt to pass and settled next to Sierra, who’d been quiet since her encounter with Rob.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure. Fine.”

  “Because you look like you just drank vinegar.”

  She tried a fake smile. “That guy gave me serious chills. Sorry. It was just a reminder of how…evil that bunch is.”

  “But he’s found religion.”

  “Maybe so. I don’t buy it. His type never do. Not really.”

  “Well, it’s over now. You can relax.”

  “Spoken by the man with eyes in the back of his head.”

  They slogged along parallel to the highway that ran toward Claremore, using the turnpike only to cross a waterway before getting off the road again. The fields were green from fall rains, and with a breeze as mild as the temperature, the ride was as pleasant as any they’d experienced since setting off from Colorado.

  They pitched their tents behind a cluster of burned-out homes south of Claremore, the ruins like broken teeth jutting from the earth against a twilight horizon, and after a hushed meal of salted meat and water, Colt took first watch with George while the rest of them crawled into their tents to snatch some sleep.

  Lucas had finally dozed off when he was jarred awake by gunfire. Holes appeared in the upper part of his tent, revealing starlight outside. He dog-crawled to the entry flap, M4 in hand. A scream from nearby pierced the night as he fumbled to unzip the opening, and then he was out and rolling to the side, where the crumbled lower part of a chimney provided cover.

  He switched on the NV scope, raised his rifle, and spotted a gunman fifty yards away, running toward him in a crouch. A three-round burst knocked the attacker off his feet, and Lucas shifted his aim to the next shooter. He loosed a second burst and the man jerked like a rag doll before tumbling to the ground, dropping his weapon.

  “Colt! George! You okay?” Luke called as he drew a bead on yet another attacker, thankful that they were so careless they hadn’t thought about cover. His M4 barked death and the man collapsed.

  The distinctive rattle of Arnold’s and John’s AR-15s sounded from Lucas’s left. George’s voice answered Lucas from his right. “Colt’s hit.”

  Chunks of brick sprayed from the chimney. He spotted the source and answered with two three-round bursts, the second of which drove the shooter backward as the rounds punched into his chest. Lucas didn’t dwell on his success, instead adjusting his aim and cutting another gunmen’s legs from under him, his bullets slamming into the man’s unprotected thighs.

  “How bad?” Lucas yelled.

  More shooting interrupted George’s answer, and Lucas concentrated his fire on the muzzle flashes flaring in his scope. He fired burst after burst and then ejected his spent magazine and slapped another into place, keeping his head down as he chambered a round, the brick absorbing the worst of the offensive fire. When there was a lull in the shooting, he picked another target near one of the piles of rubble and waited until the man’s head was in his crosshairs before squeezing the trigger and finishing him.

  More rounds snapped past and he spied a gunman firing from behind a tree. None of the shooters appeared to have night vision gear, which gave Lucas and his group a marked advantage. The attackers were firing at shadows, whereas the landscape was neon green in Lucas’s scope, making it child’s play to spot the gunmen from their rifles’ blossoms.

  Lucas made every burst count, and when his second magazine was spent and he’d rammed another into place, he held his fire, taking in the measured, disciplined bark of Arnold’s rifle. Lucas swept the area with his gun, searching for another target, but there were no more. He spied movement a couple of hundred yards away and loosed a few bursts at the men who were trying to edge into the gunfight, offering them a reason to rethink their choice. The strategy worked, and he saved his rounds as the attackers retreated out of range.

  He watched and waited, too seasoned in combat over the last few months to believe that the skirmish was over. His patience was rewarded when a figure with an assault rifle popped from the tall grass to his left and fired at George’s position. Lucas heard a grunt near him and squeezed the trigger, stitching the figure with a burst and driving him to his knees. A final burst ended it and the man fell to the side with a scream.

  A hail of rounds pocked the foundation around Lucas as another gunman emptied his rifle at him on full auto – an amateur move. Lucas kept his head down until the weapon was empty and then shot the man as he fumbled with his weapon, obviously unaware that he was visible to Lucas with the NV scope.

  The intensity of the incoming fire faded over the next few minutes as Lucas and the others picked away at the attackers until there were none left, and the area fell silent as abruptly as it had become pandemonium. Lucas remained in place, maintaining his guard until Arnold’s boots approached.

  “I think that’s it,” the older man said.

  “Could be. Or could be they’re waiting for us to relax.”

  “I don’t know. Must have taken down twenty of them.”

  Lucas spit to the side, his eye still glued to the scope. “Could be a lot more than that.”

  “Make ’em think twice about it, though, don’t you think?”

  “Depends on how committed they are.” Lucas paused. “You or John take any hits?”

  “Negative on me. John got one in the arm, but he’s stable.”

  “Sounds like Colt and George are in a bad way. Where’s Sierra?”

  “Over by us.”

  “She okay?”

  “Yes. I’ll go check on Colt. Cover me.”

  “You got it.”

  Lucas watched for any movement in the ruins while Arnold made his way to Colt’s position. The tenuous silence held for a few moments, and then Arnold returned, his expression grim. “Colt’s dead. And George isn’t long for this world.”

  “Damn. Made it all this way, too.”

  Arnold’s expression darkened. “Wonder who they were?”

  “They must have followed us from town. I knew something was off.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost midnight.”

  “We’ll wait until it’s light out to reconnoiter. Don’t want to get bushwhacked by a snake in the grass.”

  “Anything we can do for George?”

  “No. He’s already in shock. Took one through the throat. Nothing we can do.”

  “Poor bastard.”

  Arnold nodded. “Going to be a long night.”

  “For everyone.”

  Sierra reached Lucas several minutes later, her eyes glittering in the starlight. Lucas put his arm around her and whispered reassurance he didn
’t feel, his mind working on the possibilities raised by the attack – none of them good. They stayed like that until daybreak. As the sun rose, Arnold returned, and he and Lucas went to check for survivors while Sierra and John kept watch.

  They counted twenty-six corpses, and Lucas was heading toward number twenty-seven when Arnold called out from nearby, “Got a live one.”

  Lucas came at a jog and stopped by Arnold, who was kneeling beside a shivering man in his twenties, his hair long and filthy. His chest was soaked with dried blood, and a blossom of fresh crimson from one side of his flak jacket pulsed with every breath.

  “Who are you?” Arnold demanded.

  Lucas pointed at an amateurish tattoo on the man’s neck. “See that? A bone.”

  “You Bones?” Arnold asked.

  The man managed a nod.

  “Why did you come after us?” Lucas growled.

  “Horses.” The man coughed blood. “Guns.”

  Lucas and Arnold exchanged a glance. Arnold nodded as the man struggled for air. He straightened and eyed the wounded man without pity.

  “You made your bed. This is your reward. You’re just lucky we’re compassionate and aren’t going to gut you for fun.”

  Lucas nodded. “He’s in his maker’s hands now.”

  The man’s eyes fluttered closed as he saved his energy. Arnold walked away, and he and Lucas resumed their search for bodies, collecting magazines and weapons as they did – a cache that could be redeemed when they came upon another trading post.

  When they were finished, they’d accounted for thirty-one Bones, all male. Lucas buried Colt and George, the latter who’d expired while they’d been interrogating the wounded man, and Sierra tended to John’s wound as Arnold broke camp and loaded up the dead men’s horses with weapons. Once done, Lucas offered an all-too-familiar prayer for the dead while they stood by the fresh graves, and then they mounted up. The distance they had to cover was daunting, each of them was exhausted and demoralized by the loss, and the day had only just begun.

  Chapter 23

  Rob sat forward in his swivel chair and adjusted the radio volume as he waited for the operator on the other end of the transmission to locate Rob’s handler. He’d broadcast in the middle of the night and requested an urgent meeting that morning, but apparently his superior had missed the deadline – an ominous development that spoke to declining morale and discipline in the Crew since Magnus’s demise.

  Rob had been sent by the Crew to open a trading post and act as their eyes and ears in Tulsa, a town at the edge of their territory that wasn’t worth any resources to capture. It had nothing the Crew wanted, but the group still saw the value of having informants outside of its sphere of influence, and Rob was one of several plants in outlying areas that kept Houston posted on any developments of interest.

  His cover story had been swallowed hook and line by the locals, and after several years of keeping a low profile, he was a colorful part of the landscape, his sordid past of little interest to a population on its last legs. The part he hated the most about his duty was the place itself – a dung hole inhabited by lowlifes, where nothing of note ever happened.

  Until the woman had entered with the cowboys.

  He’d seen her before – on a flyer that had been circulated by Magnus, along with the picture of the little girl.

  He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he believed it was her. There weren’t a lot of women with her looks wandering around the wilderness with an eye of Providence tattoo – the Crew’s brand to signify she was its property.

  The speakers crackled and the operator’s voice came over the air. “He’s here. Are you still there? Over.”

  “Not many places to go in this dump. Over.”

  A different voice, baritone, drifted from the speakers. “What have you got for me? Over.”

  “A party of six rode through here yesterday. Five men and a woman. Used my radio. Over.”

  “And? Over.”

  “I monitored their transmission.” Rob had engineered a tube that connected the radio room to his main room so that he could eavesdrop while anyone paying for confidential time believed themselves to be alone. “They’re on their way to Springfield. Over.”

  “This is what you woke me up last night for? Over.”

  “No, you don’t understand. One of them was the woman on the flyer you circulated a couple months back. Remember? With the girl? Over.”

  A long pause ensued, the speakers hissing softly as the handler absorbed Rob’s words. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “Switch to an alternate frequency. Over.”

  Rob did as instructed. It was always the same – three channels lower on the spectrum from the one the Crew monitored, and three again should the transmission go long.

  His supervisor’s voice drifted through the room. “Are you sure it’s her? Over.”

  “She has our mark on her arm. Over.”

  “Where are they now? Over.”

  “They rode on. I don’t know. But I know where they’re headed.” Rob gave him the directions that he’d scribbled down as he’d listened to the broadcast. When he was done, there was another long silence. It stretched on, and when the handler reappeared, he spoke with a new urgency Rob had never heard in him before.

  “And you’re sure they’re meeting someone there from St. Louis? Over.”

  “That’s what he said.” Rob paused. “I could use some supplies. Rum. Anything else you can see your way clear to arrange to reach me. Over.”

  “Very well. I’ll forward this on. Over and out.”

  Rob powered down the transmitter and stood. He’d done his job and, if his handler was pleased, would get a new supply of booze and drugs with which to soften life’s blows or to trade to his fellow unfortunates, at his option. Rob was self-sustaining, which was a condition of his circumstance – the entire idea of the informant network was to have the benefit of reach without the cost of supporting it. Still, there were some things that he couldn’t get in Tulsa at any price, and one of them was rum. Another, meth.

  Both were prized by the inhabitants of the miserable place, but Rob had already decided he would keep it for himself if he got a shipment. Anything that would be a diversion from the unending sameness of each day in purgatory would be far too valuable to him to trade.

  He considered the small barred window where sunlight was filtering through the grimy glass and shook off the thought. Nothing would reach him unless his information proved valuable, and he had no idea what it might mean to his betters. He knew that they’d been searching for the woman and child as part of Magnus’s hunt for Shangri-La, but that had been a while ago, and word was that Magnus had found it to his detriment, so it might all be meaningless by now.

  “A regular firecracker, all right,” he muttered, and made his way back to the shop to begin another day of dickering with the walking dead.

  ~ ~ ~

  The operator sat back and stared up at Raz, who ran the Crew’s network of informants as part of its clandestine information-gathering apparatus. Raz shifted from foot to foot before falling still and turning to the operator.

  “We need to let Snake know. Can you reach him?”

  “Should be able to. They’ve got someone monitoring transmissions in New Orleans, just like here.”

  “When does he plan on returning?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Springfield’s a long way away from any of our strongholds. There’s no way we can get anyone up there to intercept them in four days.”

  The operator nodded mutely and cleared his throat. “Snake might have contacts outside of our territory we don’t know about. I mean, look at the ship that appeared out of nowhere. We can’t make any assumptions.”

  “Good point.” Raz’s face wrinkled with a frown, the lines deepening as he came to a decision. “Call them.”

  Chapter 24

  Sierra looked up at Lucas from the fire pit she’d built with a collection of small rocks. He smiled at
her as he strode up from the shore with a stringer of plump fish. They’d reached Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees an hour before nightfall, and he’d taken the opportunity to catch a fresh dinner while the rest set up camp. Arnold had approved a fire to cook if Lucas was successful, there being numerous other fires on the bank – the huge body of water was a natural source of sustenance and, as such, was ringed with people who’d taken up residence along its shores.

  They’d found a promising spot on a bluff where they’d be able to see anyone approach from a good distance, and the clearing was surrounded by trees that would hide the glow of their flames from the curious. After the prior night’s fight and the endless day in the saddle, none of them were feeling lucky, and all their nerves were frayed. The bandage on John’s arm was seeping pus in spite of the antibiotics he was taking, and he was feverish, leaving them shorthanded in the event of another attack, and they were on edge at the prospect of a long night of sentry duty with precious little chance of sleep.

  “Wow. Looks like you scored,” Sierra said at the sight of the fish.

  “Yep. Too bad we can’t stay here a while. They practically jumped out of the water when they saw the spoon.”

  “I’ll light the fire.”

  “I already cleaned them, so that’s all we’re waiting on.”

  Sierra had gathered kindling while Lucas was fishing, and felt in her vest for a disposable lighter. She flicked it to life, and the twigs began smoking after several long moments. Soon the fire was snapping and popping as the wood caught in earnest and she tossed more branches onto the conflagration. Lucas skewered a fish with a stick and held it in the flames, and within minutes it was cooked through, the smell heavenly after so many days of dry provisions.

  Arnold stayed on watch while they dined on roasted white bass, and then Lucas replaced him on guard duty so Arnold could eat. John took a few mouthfuls of food but protested that he wasn’t hungry, and Arnold happily consumed his portion as well. When he’d eaten his fill, he found his way to where Lucas was seated cross-legged with his back against a tree, watching the trail that led to their camp, his hat on the ground by his side.