by T. K. Malone
This was how they’d clashed: two hunters and one prey. She’d got close enough to stun it, but then he’d just popped up and shot it outright. What were the chances of them coming together like this, out here in the wilderness of woodland, canyon and creek? Had it been her fate? Her fate whose game of chance had turned her life upside-down without a care for fairness, for what was right and what was wrong, and certainly with no consideration for love.
It hadn’t been that deer were scarce up here in the hills, it had been a matter of principle. It was her kill. He thought it was his. He’d approached her as she’d stood over the carcass, not saying a word, finally just standing there, as though the kill had been his by right. They’d squared off, then they’d fought, fought whilst Jake had gotten on with loading the carcass into their cart. Mankind was like that: fighting when no fight was needed.
And the clouds continued to roll in to compound her misery. She was cold. The shock having run its course, pain now wracked her body, the day over, the fight done, a hunger gnawing at her stomach, another at her mind.
“Gridder?” he said.
“Yes,” she muttered.
He pointed to her belly. “Happen in the city?”
“Yes.”
“That why you runnin’?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, chewing his bottom lip. “Fair enough.” Reaching in his overcoat, he pulled out a small dull-silver flask and ripped the stopper out with his teeth. He offered it to her. She shook her head. He offered again, and this time she took it. “You ain’t no gridder now, so you can stop believing their bullshit.” The liquor spilled down her throat like broken glass, tearing at its sides, but when it settled in her stomach, it fought off the cold damp and took away a little of the pain in her arm, calmed her withdrawal.
“You hooked on shine?”
“Been fed something.”
“Well, yer in fer the shivers. Need t’be clean fer him,” and he pointed at her belly.
Teah nodded, but didn’t reply.
Jake drove them down the steep trail, the wheels slipping and sliding perilously close to the edge in the rain-soaked mud. She caught glimpses of the river she’d been heading for, the one where she’d hoped to make a new life, in this valley or maybe the next, or by any river in any valley. If this man let her live, she’d settle wherever she could hide, but that didn’t look likely now. Though he held it lazily, the rifle’s barrel never wavered, his finger never straying from the trigger.
“Snapped that good an’ proper,” he said, a faint grin lurking in the blackness under the rim of his hat.
“Yes.” She handed him the flask.
“Should mend better, though. Jake? You want a swig?”
“Na.”
“Then get a move on. I’ve a mind to get back before moon-up,” he said, and Jake duly snapped the reins at the ass and it trotted on a little faster.
“Jake’s pissed off I didn’t kill you,” the man then said. “Don’t think he likes girls. Don’t know, and can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. He’s the nervous type, is Jake. Maybe he’s right; maybe I should have killed you.” Taking off his hat and shaking the water from it, he ran his finger around the rim to get rid of the excess. His tight, black and grey curly hair seemed to repel water, creases across his forehead acting as a gutter to keep his thin eyebrows dry. “Should I have?”
“Yes,” she said, and reached for the flask.
He handed it to her, inclining his head as he held her gaze and brought his hand up to cover his mouth, scratching his stubbled chin. “You know, I think you may well be right.”
Whether it was the liquor, the pain or the beating he’d given her, she began to drift in and out of consciousness, the trees drifting by, black against a darkening sky, the wheels of the wagon squeaking around and around. It had been one hell of a day, but in all honesty not much different from any other recently. It was hard outside the city, no doubt about that, she told herself as her mind drifted through the pain from her arm and the fog of the liquor. A different type of hard, though. You had to stay on your toes in both places, she acknowledged, had to keep your guard up, but for wholly different reasons. The aim was the same in both, though, in the wilderness and the city: survival. But the fight was plain to see out here, more honest. At least here you knew when you’d lost.
The cart swayed from side to side, her eyes flickering as she battled to stay awake. All the while he watched her as they wound down the track from the mountain toward the river she’d only a few hours before thought would be her sanctuary.
“We’re here,” he at some point muttered. Dusk had come and gone, the stars reigning supreme now the clouds had fled beyond the mountain. Jake drew the cart to a halt. She looked around, but could see little. The man jumped down, his rifle in the crook of his arm. “It’s a camp of sorts at least, with a cabin of sorts. There’s better further down the valley, but it’s enough for tonight.” He held his arm out. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve a mind to get inside.”
For the first time since they’d met, she began to think she might live a little while longer, so she shoved her darker thoughts aside, those that told her the world would be a better place with her gone, thoughts that had forgone the future of the baby growing inside her. A tiny hope glinted there, though, a hope that she might just get to meet the troublesome kid within her, the kid whose meddling had already had repercussions.
“Thank you,” she said, and eased herself off the cart, even her soft landing jarring her arm, bringing pain crashing through her. She bent double, stifling a cry. But when she looked up, her eyes glistened in the moonlight, radiating defiance. The spikes of her short, black hair shone with a mix of silver and blue in the starlight. “You going to need a hand with that deer?” she said through clenched teeth.
He took off his hat and punched it out, shaking his head. “Name’s Lester. You got one?”
She smiled but then had to grimace before conjuring another smile. “Yeah, Teah.”
Back off the cliff…?
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Free World Apocalypse - Fugitive
“Who knows, who truly knows what sparks the trail of gunpowder? What word ignites the passion of panic? But when a man lets the mayhem of war loose in his mind and its chaos infects the thoughts of others, those of reason and thought are usually found beaten and bloody, prostrate in the gutter of hope. We passed that point last night. Now there is no reason, no thought, no gutter.”
The Free World is in a state of perpetual war. Is it a mere matter of time before one side or the other presses the button? Will Oster Prime, fearless leader of The Free World, have the stones?
Teah has something new to worry about, against all the odds her son survived to be born into a hard life in the country. Forging an existence away from the Black City, Teah finds that folk are wary of her, very wary. City folk just aren’t trusted out there.
With her cabin burned to the ground, a bounty on her head, is it time to start running again, or should she stand and fight? And when the nukes go up, will it become a level playing field, or will things get infinitely worse for her?
Free World Apocalypse – Fugitive takes us from 10 years before the apocalypse to right smack bang in the middle of it, and guess what?
Caution – contains a cliffhanger, and a very high one.
Does Oster Prime have the stones?
You bet he does…
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