by Amy Briant
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Other Books by Amy Briant
About the Author
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
Bella Books
Synopsis
“I hate field trips.” That’s exactly what Kell was thinking just as the bus blew up…
Thus begins a grueling trek for three young survivors in a treacherous post-apocalyptic world—pitting the inner strength and resilience of youth against the dysfunction and destruction created by adults.
Scavenging for food, drinkable water and anything else that will help them survive the journey, the teens must constantly be on the alert for enemy drones, crazed loners, domestic terrorists, packs of feral dogs, and flesh-seeking predators. Not to mention some deadly surprises from Mother Nature.
www.BellaBooks.com
When you shop at Bella, more of your dollars reach the women who write and produce the books you love. Thanks from all of the authors & staff at Bella!
Blog: Bella Media Channel
Facebook: BellaBooks
Twitter: @bellabooks
Instagram: TheBellaBooks
Other Bella Books by Amy Briant
Romeo Fails
Shadow Point
A Heavenly Wilcox Mystery
Heavenly Moves
About the Author
Amy Briant is the author of four novels. A native Californian, she is startled to find herself living on the East Coast.
Copyright © 2020 by Amy Briant
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
First Bella Books Edition 2020
eBook released 2020
Editor: Ann Roberts
Cover Designer: Judith Fellows
ISBN: 978-1-64247-104-5
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Chapter One
The Field Trip
I hate field trips. That’s exactly what I was thinking when the bus blew up.
I remember there was shouting. Then, a split second before the explosion, the crescendo of an intense high-pitched whine going from inaudible to ear-splitting in the blink of an eye. And then BOOM.
Hours before, they loaded the slouching, yawning, barely awake senior class—yours truly, eleven boys, eight girls—into a small bus for the ride up to the observatory. Field trips were everything that sucked about school, but worse. Crammed into a bus with my tormentors, I had nowhere to run.
It was fall. The beginning of my last year of school. I would’ve been long gone if I hadn’t promised my Gran I would graduate. My mother had homeschooled me and Gabriel, but when she died during the Bad Times, Gran eventually decided we should go to school with the other surviving kids. I hated school. The only good thing about it was all the books the Settlement had in their library—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, reference, technical manuals. Almost a thousand books and I secretly vowed to read them all. But I hated being stuck inside a classroom, hated having to study things that no longer had any use or meaning in our world—if they ever did Before. But mostly I hated the other kids, who bullied and teased me like I was created for that very purpose.
That first day of school, my sister and I walked the five miles through the redwoods at dawn. I was thirteen and Gabriel was three years older. Side by side in the principal’s office, Gabriel stood tall, doing all the talking as usual. I was silent, my eyes darting about the room, taking in the strangeness of it, a small, scruffy figure in my jeans and sweatshirt, baseball hat pulled low over my eyes.
“It’s so nice to see you again, Gabriel,” the principal told her. “Your parents were colleagues of mine in the psychology department Before. Fine people, both of them. And this must be, umm, your little brother, right? Kell, is it?” He squinted at the paper in his hand, then at me.
Gabriel looked down with the special smile she reserved just for me, her eyes questioning. She knew I was nervous about the whole school thing. I nodded once, just a quick up and down with my chin. She put her arm around my shoulders.
“Yes,” she told the principal. “This is Kell.”
The stupid field trip. The adults were usually stingy with fuel, although there was plenty left in town if you had the patience and the stomach to retrieve it. One of the grownups had been an astronomy professor at the university Before. He was just another Settler now. But he convinced the council that our young lives would be immeasurably enriched by viewing a passing comet through the one working telescope at the old observatory.
Like we gave a shit about comets. Or Before, which we barely remembered. The senior class was in kindergarten when the Bad Times began. Some people were even starting to just call them The Times, like bad stuff only happened in the past, or in a story. Like if enough years went by, only good things would remain. It had been seven years since the last attack, five since the last big quake. That’s a long time for most people.
Friday morning, we’d assembled at the school with our backpacks and sleeping bags. Mr. Giovanni was checking names off a list with a pencil bearing his bite marks. He taught English and history to all the high schoolers, plus he was the Aptitude counselor for the seniors.
“…eighteen…nineteen…now who am I missing? Oh. Yes. Kell.”
He shot me a quick, unsure half-smile as grownups so often did and made a final check in his little red notebook.
“Let’s go, campers!” he yelled enthusiastically to the completely unenthusiastic group. He would be our driver that brisk October day.
The retrofitted bus lurched and shuddered its way up to the
observatory on a highway long overgrown with weeds. It was a slow drive in a low gear. The road was marred with cracks from earthquakes, potholes, fallen trees and rocks, not to mention the occasional rusted-out skeleton of a Before car. Dense forest, mostly redwoods and pines, covered the rest of the hillside. I knew. I’d been up there before with Gabriel on one of our scouting expeditions.
Hunter Cohen and one of his equally dim-witted buddies sat in front of me. As usual, no one sat next to me. God forbid. I stared out the window and hoped they would leave me alone, knowing they wouldn’t.
“What’s in the bag, faggot?” was how it started. My backpack was on the empty seat next to me. I had automatically, defensively hooked my arm through the strap when I sat down. I couldn’t afford to lose what little I had. I kept staring out the window, ignoring them, while surreptitiously tightening my hold on the pack. If it came down to a tugging match, I was going to lose. Hunter outweighed me by at least fifty pounds and his pal was even bigger.
Ignoring them wasn’t working. They were bored. And I was prey.
“Probably just his bra and panties,” sneered the pal. “Fuckin’ little fairy.”
Hunter reached over the seat and grabbed my pack. I held on with all my strength, but it was only a matter of time. His buddy giggled as he watched me struggle.
“Fuck off,” I snarled at them both.
“Fuck off,” Hunter repeated in a high-pitched, taunting voice. His buddy thought that was hysterical.
I wished them both dead with all my heart.
My ignominious and inevitable defeat was averted only by the arrival of Hunter’s sometime girlfriend, who came swaying down the aisle, trailing her fingertips over the backs of everyone’s seats for balance. Her name was Elinor Eastman, but the kids called her East. She was beautiful but unfortunately was well aware of that. Taller than I by at least three inches. Luminous, pale skin. Glossy, dark brown hair tumbling down past her shoulders, fine features, eyes an unusual shade of dark blue. Which didn’t match the greenish shiner she had going on under her left eye. Maybe her stepfather had hit her. Maybe her oaf of a boyfriend.
Who, thankfully, let go of my backpack and the twisted fistful of my hoodie he had wadded up in his other hand. He shoved his buddy off the seat to make way for East. She glanced at me as she slid onto the padded bench, giving me just the glimmer of a nod. Or maybe I imagined that. Hunter didn’t notice, being too busy running his sweaty hands all over her and leaning in for a big slurp of a kiss. Gross. I went back to staring out the window, wishing I was anywhere but there. Wishing the trip wouldn’t last much longer.
Not knowing it was going to be the longest one of my life.
Chapter Two
Lookout Dude
The observatory was ninety percent in ruins, but the council still used it as a lookout post. It was built on top of a large hill or small mountain, according to your perspective, at the crest of a highway formerly known as 17. Gabriel had shown me one of the old metal signs with the number on it, one of the few still standing by the side of the road. Presumably the sixteen other highways had suffered the same fate.
The man assigned to the lookout post had been an administrator at the university. Not too much call for that these days, but Everyone Must Contribute was a big rule, so they sent him up the hill to look out for—what? On a clear day, you could see the Pacific sparkling in the distance and plenty of forest on the surrounding hillsides, but not much else. I knew where our Settlement was to the south and west, but you couldn’t see it from that vantage point. San Francisco was about sixty miles north. According to rumor, it was still faintly smoldering after all those years. A flattened, blackened, desolate no man’s land. That was just a rumor, though. I’d never been further than the observatory summit myself, and I’d only made it that far because Gabriel had taken me on her explorations.
In history class, Mr. Giovanni told us that a lot of people had fled inland to Nevada, Arizona and other points east when the Bad Times began, anticipating the worst. Our town had been called San Tomas. Much of it was badly damaged in the first tsunami, but the university—University of California at San Tomas, or UCST for short—was perched high on a hill, so it was spared from that catastrophe, if not from the others. Whatever San Tomas had been Before—a college town, a beach town, a tourist town—it was none of those things now. Almost everyone in the Settlement had some tie to the university. Not as students—it was December break when Before had turned into Now. All the students had been home with their families. They were all gone now, one way or the other.
The lookout dude was kind of squirrelly looking, but he lived all alone up there so I figured he was entitled to his weirdness. What could he possibly have to do all day long? There hadn’t been anyone or anything to look out for in years. I was glad that job was taken, though—I would have hated that Aptitude.
He was waiting for us at the checkpoint, a tight smile stretched over sunken cheeks. Probably hadn’t had any visitors in months. Apart from the squirreliness, he was an unremarkable older white guy, average height and weight, brown hair going gray.
Mr. G. laboriously maneuvered past one last fallen tree and then into a cleared area a few hundred yards below the summit. As the bus rumbled to a stop, the seniors surged to their feet excitedly, eager to be released after the long, bumpy ride. No one was more eager than I.
“Settle down, settle down,” Mr. Giovanni said loudly from the driver’s seat, holding up a hand to get our attention and staring us down in the rearview mirror. He cut the engine and set the brake, then stood to face us.
“All right, you know the drill. We’re just stopping here to pick up our guide, Mr. Larsen, from the observatory. We’re going to take a ten-minute break, then finish the drive to the summit. I want you all back on this bus in exactly ten minutes, you got it?”
A mixed chorus of “Yes, Mr. G.,” hoots and catcalls was his answer. I waited for the rest of them to exit, then got off with my pack on my back. The kids were spread out in the cleared area, running around and yelling at each other like a bunch of first graders. Mr. Giovanni had opened up the cargo space beneath the bus to pull out his backpack. From it, he was busy doling out little bags of trail mix which he made himself for school events. Nice man.
I eased past Lookout Dude who was poking around in the cargo space. I wondered about that for half a second, but I was more focused on getting my own gear out of there. I was supposed to hang with the group and then get back on the bus like I was told, but I was never very good at following rules. And no way I was getting back on that bus—I had decided I would walk up to the summit and meet them there. I needed the fresh air.
Lookout Dude flicked me a glance as I hauled out my sleeping bag and tent. There was sweat on his brow although the temperature was in the low fifties. Blue skies, a light breeze—a perfect fall day. He stared at the nametag on my gear.
“Dupont,” he said. “That a French name?”
He didn’t sound too happy about it. Some people blamed Europe for the Bad Times, others the Middle East. No doubt some of the folks over there (if there were any left) were busy pointing their fingers at us. As far as I could see, there was plenty of blame to go around. The triple whammy of radical climate change, domestic political dissent and international unrest had altered a lot of things.
My Gran, as usual, had her own take on the situation. “People ruin everything,” she told me more than once. “They just can’t help themselves.”
Lookout Dude was staring at me, all beady-eyed and twitchy. What was his problem anyway?
“You don’t look French,” he said argumentatively.
“I’m American,” I said and walked away. I’m a mongrel, as Gran used to so proudly proclaim. In addition to French, our family tree had Chinese, Pawnee, Welsh, Cuban and who knew what else in its branches. Out of this mixture came me: short, skinny, brown eyes, brown skin, cropped black hair that refused to obey either a comb or gravity. My sister got all the looks in the family. Th
e charm too, Gran would have cackled. So fine, I wasn’t the pretty one—but I didn’t think I was ugly either. I was quick, but not muscular. Smart enough, but not talkative, which for some reason really bothered people. When they looked at me, they saw someone who didn’t fit in, someone who didn’t fall into one of their precious preordained categories. They saw someone they couldn’t figure out and that made them nervous. Nervous as in mean. Curious. Confused. Aggressive.
I just wanted to be left alone.
I told Mr. Giovanni I’d see them at the summit.
“Kell…” he said, disappointed but understanding. He was always trying to get me to play well with others. Which would have been great if the others didn’t insist on beating the crap out of me.
“All right,” he sighed and handed me a little cloth bag of trail mix. “Be careful out there.”
The school bus was far more dangerous to me than the forest, but there was no point in debating it. I thanked him and set off up the hill. My fellow scholars were sitting on the fallen trees and boulders that formed the perimeter of the cleared area, eating their snacks. The path leading to the observatory wound through a stand of three enormous redwoods fifty yards up the hillside and I headed that way. The ground was soft underfoot with a cushiony, slippery layer of pine needles. The cool clean air was spicy with their scent. The gentle breeze had the treetops and the brush in constant, delicate motion.
There was a great view from up there. Through a gap in the trees, you could see miles of rolling hills, all the way to a glimpse of the ocean. The Settlement was on the far side of one of those hills. I wondered who else was out there—other groups like ours? Someone like me? Yeah, right.
Beyond the three giant redwoods was a natural bowl-like depression, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, before the hillside resumed its ascent to the peak. I paused there for two quick adjustments. First, I wanted to strap my sleeping bag and tent to my pack so it was all on my back, leaving my arms free. Second, after a long bus ride, I really needed to pee. There was no one else around and the broad base of the nearest redwood was more than sufficient cover. I was thankful I didn’t have to deal with the usual hassle of peeing at school. If I went in the boys’ bathroom, I was likely to get roughed up. If I went in the girls’ bathroom, they would shriek and freak out. I normally tried to hold it until lunchtime when I could duck behind the handy ruins of some former campus building and piss in peace. I never understood why it had to be so complicated. Why they thought I couldn’t be allowed in either place. I mean, everybody’s got to pee sooner or later, right?