American Apocalypse Wastelands

by Nova

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Also by Nova

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  OTHER ULYSSES PRESS BOOKS

  Copyright Page

  For Marilyn and Elizabeth

  Also by Nova

  American Apocalypse: The Collapse Begins

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I don’t feel as if I wrote this book alone, as it was written live and online. The people who left comments and suggestions influenced the story line more than they will ever know. Many times the only thing that kept me writing was their kind words. For all of you—thanks!

  I would also like to thank Bill McBride at the Calculated Risk blog. He was a significant factor in making this book happen. He graciously put up with my comments and snippets of book posts, for which I am ever grateful. Tanta Vive!

  CHAPTER ONE

  I lay there. On my back in darkness. It wasn’t very comfortable and I hurt. I am not fond of pain. But I’m no stranger to it. My ears were ringing and my thigh didn’t feel right. I was tired. Very tired. The pain in my thigh almost had me worried. I wanted to check and see if I still had my balls; I just didn’t have the energy to move my arm to do it. It was easier just to lie there.

  I thought about opening my eyes. Instead I decided to keep them shut and live with the pain; the pain was the only thing keeping me tethered to my body. Once it began to ebb, and I knew it would, then I could float away. That would be fun. I imagined myself rising into the sky like a bird until I got enough altitude that I could practice soaring and swooping. The pain was beginning to recede and I knew it would be only a matter of minutes before I could let go.

  Then I processed what I was hearing. Someone was yelling, “Max! Gardener! Night!” over and over. I recognized the voice. I recognized those names. I just wasn’t able to connect them to the pain.

  The voice though—that I knew. It was pulling me back from being able to fly. I so wanted to fly, but I wanted even more to respond to her. I always had, one way or another. I tried calling out to her. It was hard to form words. I did it anyway and with it came the memory of why I was laying here.

  Night! Where was she? Fucking assholes and their fucking flying machines, I thought.

  Get pissed, I told myself. Strength can be found in anger and I needed it. I had to get up. Hell, I had to start by opening my eyes. I didn’t want to but what I wanted and what reality provided seldom matched.

  Much closer now I heard Carol say, “Gardener!” Then she was next to me. Kneeling and leaning over, she told me, “It’s going to be okay.”

  I felt her hand brush my cheek. I flared my nostrils and took a deep breath. I wanted to inhale her smell right into my soul. I heard her say, “Jake is going to take care of you.” Then she was gone.

  Who the hell is Jake? My eyes popped open. Some guy that looked vaguely familiar had taken her spot and was reaching into a bag next to him while telling me, “Whoa, buddy. You’re hurt. Let me take a look at you and . . .”

  Fuck this, I thought. I started to get up. Medic Man put his hand on my chest and pushed. I went back down, not that I had managed to move a lot. I was beginning to dislike this guy.

  “Where’s Night?” I asked him.

  “Look. You’re messed up. Stay put and let me look at you.”

  “Fuck you. Where’s Night and where’s Max?”

  I looked over to where Carol had rolled someone over. Max. It looked as if he was breathing, but the right side of his face was a mess. I could see a wicked gash on his cheek, below the eye. I thought, That is going to make a really cool scar.

  Carol knelt over him. For a second my heart hurt worse than anything I had felt so far today. I heard her tell the asshole next to me, “Take care of him first.” I saw the plea in her eyes.

  The guy grabbed his bag and told me to stay put. I watched him hustle over to Carol and listened as he said, “Okay, Max, I’m going to stop the bleeding. Then I’m going to see if you are hurt anywhere else.”

  Well, fuck it, I thought. I never had her anyway. But I did have Night, who, I realized to my surprise, owned as big a piece of my heart as Carol did, maybe bigger.

  I sat up. Damn, my thigh hurt. I looked down and saw a chunk of wood sticking out from it. Well, that sucks. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. I rolled on my side, drew my legs in, and pushed myself up with my arms. I thought I was going to faint from the wave of pain that hit me. Oh yes, this feels familiar. I sucked some wind, moved my good leg, and used it to push myself upright. I almost made it.

  I said earlier that I knew pain. Well, now I knew him even better. I waited until the light show inside my head stopped. I shook my head, hoping that would clear it, and looked around. I needed a Plan B.

  Plan B turned out to be something long, black, and tubelike that Medic Man had left next to me. I grabbed it, pulled it close, and tried again to get up. This time it worked. Whatever the hell it was that I was using as an extra leg and cane was heavy. It also looked vaguely familiar. But the pain and the need to move overrode any ability I had to focus.

  I started moving toward the motel, where I thought Night was. It had been hit and was really starting to burn. I was going to have to work my way around that. At least it produced a lot of light.

  Behind me I heard Medic Man yell, “Hey!” I didn’t stop. Damn, it hurt to walk. I heard Carol tell him something ; she said it too low for me to hear. I did hear his reply. “He better not lose my fucking Barrett.” That was interesting: a medic running around with a sniper rifle. The world never ceased to amaze me.

  The Anchorage Motel was laid out like an L. The short side of the L held the main lobby and check-in. They sat inside a two-story great room built to resemble the prow of a ship. The back part of the second story contained living quarters for Night’s parents.

  The face of the motel nearest the road was almost all glass, and a large ship’s wheel hung inside, suspended from the roof and filling the airspace of the great room. The wheel was what finally tipped me off that the motel was not named af
ter Anchorage, Alaska. I’d been embarrassed by how long that had taken to click in my head. I wouldn’t have to worry about it now, though; that part of the motel had taken a direct hit.

  If I were a good person, I would have worried about Night’s parents and whoever else might have been in there. I’m not, though, so I didn’t. Instead I kept going.

  Night lived near the far end of the L. Normally I could have walked to it in under a minute. Tonight it felt like an eternity just to make it around the main part of the structure. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to kick in any doors to find her, or move anything that weighed more than a few pounds.

  I got lucky. I found her crumpled in a tiny heap. She was lying outside the door, off the sidewalk, in the grass. Not far from her room. It hurt me to see how small she looked lying there. Even worse was to see that she was hurt. Hurt badly.

  The back of her head had been hit and burned by a chunk of debris. Her hair was still smoldering. I knelt down next to her and gathered what remained of her hair in the back and squeezed it in my fist. With the pain in my leg, it should have hurt to bend down but it didn’t.

  The skin on the back of her neck and one shoulder was burnt. It was not pretty. Plus, her back and both legs were bleeding in places. She moaned.

  I told her, “Hey. It’s okay.” I tried to think of something calming and reassuring to say, but I didn’t have anything stored away.

  She rolled over, let out a moan, looked up at me, and said, “I knew you would come.”

  What could I say to that?

  I smiled and told her, “We got to get out of here. I need you to stand up. Can you do that?”

  She moaned, nodded, and began pushing herself up. I tried to help her. I wasn’t much use. She gasped a bit when she saw Mr. Woodie sticking out of my thigh. “You’re hurt.”

  “Yep.”

  “At first I thought you were happy to see me.”

  She smiled when I looked at her with surprise. Well, it may have been a wince, but that was close enough for me.

  I was going to reply, probably with something lame that I would regret, when I got a really bad feeling about things.

  “C’mon, Night, we got to move.” I had my arm around her waist, partly to steady myself, mostly because I wanted to. I pulled away as we came around the corner. “Night, I need you to back up and go lie down on the other side of that hill. Now.”

  She didn’t argue. She just went, which was good because the helo was back, looking like a black dragon out of The Lord of the Rings. It had come from behind us—fast and low, with no lights—and for a second I thought it was going to keep going. I didn’t really believe it, though.

  Well, this is fucked, I thought. It kept going, but not far enough. It went out about a half mile, made a U-turn, and came back toward us.

  I knew Max and Carol were out front. I could see them huddled near some shrubbery that was not going to keep them safe from Sauron’s minion. Shit, it wouldn’t protect them from an angry crow.

  I knew what I had to do. I wasn’t sure if I could, but that had never stopped me before. I gritted my teeth and headed up the hill that Night was behind.

  It really barely counted as a hill. It was more of a berm, added to stabilize the area where the motel had been built, after part of the original landscape had been cut away to build a Jiffy Lube. Hill or berm—I needed the extra height to get a clear shot.

  The pain was back. “Use the pain. Use the pain,” I muttered to myself. Use the fireball of pain that was exploding inside of me. Feed the fire.

  One second I was ready to scream from pain. The next, I was ready to scream from rage. The pain was gone, replaced by a clear flame of burning rage. C’mon, you fucker.

  I planted myself. My one good leg felt like it had grown roots and anchored itself in the Virginia clay. I swung the Barrett to my shoulder and steadied it. The sight was folded down but I didn’t need it, not at this range. I found what I hoped was the safety, not the magazine eject, and thumbed it in the opposite direction.

  The helicopter hovered there in front of me, maybe seven hundred yards out. Alive and evil in all of its arrogance, its muscles tensed for another lethal swipe. I pulled the trigger.

  The gunship shook with the impact of the round. I grinned. Partially because I had hit it, partially because I had thought the recoil would be a bitch. It wasn’t, so I pulled the trigger again. And again. Damn, it was loud. I liked that. It didn’t make a popping sound; it boomed!

  When the second round impacted, the dragon started shaking itself like a wet dog. The third time I hit it, I knew it was dying but I didn’t care. I shot it again, just because I wanted to.

  That’s when it died for real. It skipped sideways, up, and then it just rolled over and went down. The engine or rotors screamed like the flying creatures in The Lord of the Rings. I watched it, waiting for the explosion, wanting to see the fireball. I didn’t see it, though. Instead, the Barrett became impossibly heavy. I flipped the safety and set it down. The damn thing worked pretty well.

  I called out Night’s name and went to get her. Together we went back and found Max and Carol. Medic Man was still around. Good, we were going to need him. I was glad to see Max up and moving.

  “Time to move,” Max said. “Get off this hill now.”

  Medic Man tried to take Night from me. “Alright, Gardener, I’ll take her.”

  No, I thought. Who the fuck does he think he is?

  Max moved closer and quietly told me, “Hey, G, it’s okay. We got to move. You can have her back when we get out of here.”

  It made sense. I just didn’t want to admit it. I leaned down to her and whispered, “I’m not going anywhere. He’s just going to help you walk.”

  Her only reply was a soft moan and quick increase in pressure from the arm that was around me. I let her go and watched as he took my place. I didn’t like it and I almost fell over without her there to prop me up.

  “Help him,” Max told Carol, meaning me. I guess she was my consolation prize. Funny, all these years I had known her, and tonight I’d had more physical contact with her than in all the time previous.

  Max took the Barrett from me and we started moving. As we did I looked out over the county spread out in front of us. There were more fires flaring up in the distance. The Burners were running amok. They were always the most active when what passed for our civil authority was busy putting out fires of their making.

  “Carol,” Max said over his shoulder, “when we get to the parking lot I want you to get in your car and get the hell out of here. We have maybe five minutes before what they have in reserve for when rapid response shows up. When they do, they won’t be in a good mood.”

  She didn’t answer him. He waited about ten seconds. Then he said, “Carol?”

  “I know.” She didn’t sound too happy about it. “You have a plan, Max?”

  “I always have a plan, Carol. I always have a plan. We’ll be fine.”

  “You want to share it with me?” she asked. Max didn’t say anything. I heard her mutter, “I thought so.”

  Medic Man spoke up, “I have an idea.” He then proceeded to tell us about a truck he had nearby and his well-stocked basement. Apparently, Medic Man had some money and a plan of his own.

  Max listened to him, thought about it for a second, and then said, “Sounds good. Let’s do it.”

  He added, “See, Carol? I told you I had a plan.” She laughed. Laughed isn’t quite the right word. It was more a snort of amusement, affection, and sadness. We stopped in front of her car. Max told her, “Okay. Time to go, Carol.”

  She nodded and let go of me after giving me a quick squeeze. “See you, Gardener. Take care of Night.”

  I nodded, looked away, and scanned the horizon. I didn’t want her to see my eyes right then.

  She started toward her car, stopped, and looked at Max. He didn’t say anything. He just reached out and laid his hand on her cheek, his thumb moving a strand of loose hair back in place. “S
ee you later, Carol.”

  I reached over and steadied myself on Medic Man’s shoulder. “Let’s go,” I told him. He didn’t hesitate. It seemed that he was in as big a hurry to move on as I was, or at least to move away.

  For me it was because I knew it was unlikely I would be seeing Carol again. For him? I didn’t know. I did know that he and Carol had a history. That was obvious; when and where was not.

  Behind us I heard her car start up and then pull away. We reached the edge of the parking lot and were just beginning to move into the trees when I realized something.

  “Hold up,” I told Medic Man. He stopped. “She didn’t say goodbye to you.” I could hear Max’s boots crunching on the gravel as he hurried to catch up with us.

  “No. We said our goodbyes a long time ago.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  We moved on and found Medic Man’s truck. I was glad it wasn’t far away. I would take one step. Then I would take another and lie to myself. Just one more step.

  Max rode up front after helping Night and me into the back. I could tell just by looking at her that she wasn’t doing well. Medic Man had Max elevate her feet and then he covered both of us with a blue tarp—a good thing, as I was starting to get really cold. It occurred to me that I might even die. That didn’t bother me. I had been ready to die since I was born.

  We made it to his house without a problem. I don’t remember everything that happened, especially after Medic Man pulled Mr. Woodie out. Most of it was a series of disjointed clips, little one-minute movie scenes that I’m not even sure were real.

  I remember Max convincing me to go with a shot of morphine. I didn’t want to. But he convinced me that it was a good idea. He was right. Oh yes, that was a nice buzz—until Medic Man started working on me.

  I remember Max telling me, “You know, we’re going to have to get you chain mail underwear. You don’t need a vest. The only place you ever get hit is in the ass.”

  I remember listening to him. It all sounded so far away. The last thing I heard him say was, “Damn, nice sized woodie you got there. I bet that’s got to be at least six inches. You want him to save it for you? Kind of a keepsake for when you were actually well hung?”