Forsaken (The Forgotten Book 2)

by M. R. Forbes

  “I’ve heard. If that’s where Nat is, then that’s where I’m going. I don’t expect you to understand. You know about you. You care about you. I’m the least of my concerns.”

  He stared at her, waiting for a rebuttal. She stayed silent.

  “What are you going to do now?” Hayden asked.

  “That depends on you. You’re right that King won’t be happy once he finds out what happened here. He won’t try to attack Crossroads, at least as long as he doesn’t know half the guns are out of ammo, and the other half are broken. He’ll probably send a Courier for me. At least it won’t be Ghost.”

  “Why do you want to get into the Pilgrim so bad, anyway?”

  “I told you before; I want what’s on it.”

  Hayden pointed at the truck. “There’s some of it. You want it? Let me take what I need, and you can have the rest.”

  “A truce?” she asked.

  “An alliance,” he replied.

  “After what I did to you?”

  “It ended well. I’m free of King’s assholes.”

  “Are you always so generous?”

  “You might not call it generous later. I don’t need you right now. If I die, I’ll never need you. If I don’t? You might regret accepting the terms.”

  “How do you know you can trust me?”

  He looked down at her, their eyes meeting. “Can I trust you?”

  She smirked. “Yes. I don’t make dirty deals.”

  “It seems like everything is dirty out here.”

  “We learned the hard way. You will too. I still believe that.” She paused, scanning the horizon. “We shouldn’t stay here long. We’re lucky we didn’t attract the trife or the goliaths. Better not to tempt fate.”

  Hayden looked back out to the remnants of the battleground. Wiz’s people were gathering their dead. “How many soldiers do you have left?”

  “Good soldiers? A dozen or so. Lousy soldiers? I can always hire more. The body armor can be mended. It won’t be as good as it was before, but it’s better than nothing. The Butcher is worth a hundred soldiers if you’d consider giving it to me.”

  “I think I might need it where I’m going.”

  “Who needs a Butcher when you have a tank?”

  “It can’t go everywhere. Do we have a deal?”

  Wiz glanced back at the truck. “Yeah. We have a deal.”

  She put her hand out. Hayden took it.

  “Deal.”

  34

  THE TRANSPORT MADE it nearly twenty miles before the axle gave way completely, snapping without warning and causing the vehicle to lean to the side as the wheel came out from under it.

  “Damn,” Ghost said, grabbing the seat to keep his balance.

  “We made it pretty far,” Natalia replied.

  “Not far enough. Ten miles to go, and we’ll have to do it on foot.” He pointed out through the cracked windshield, to a line of broken skyscrapers in the distance. “That’s it up there.”

  “Was it nuked?” she asked.

  “No. The USSF had a base there. It was too important to nuke. They bombed the hell out of it, though. Napalm, too. They burned thousands of the trife. They needed to burn thousands more.”

  “I take it the trife are still active there?”

  “Very. Our base is well fortified, so once we get inside, we’ll be safe. The hard part is getting inside.”

  “Can you radio them and have them come out to meet us?”

  “Not from here. The transceiver is only good for a mile or two.”

  He moved past her, into the back by the equipment. He started organizing it, putting extra magazines and guns into a pair of backpacks.

  “We’re inside the active zone,” he said. “We need to make as much progress as we can before nightfall. There’s a town few miles from here. Once it gets dark, we find an empty building and we hide there until morning.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “I’m ready when you are.”

  He helped her put one of the packs on. It was heavy, and it pulled against her. She shifted a few times to get it sitting more comfortably.

  “I know it’s not light,” he said. “But part of this is to bring supplies to the base. The people there have to be sick of eating trife by now. If we get into trouble, we’ll ditch the packs first.”

  “Understood.”

  He put his pack on and then hefted one of the N80 rifles. She didn’t try to take the other. She knew she couldn’t carry it and the pack, and she had never shot anything larger than a handgun before.

  He moved to the side hatch and pressed the release. It slid open, and he hopped down, turning and offering her a hand. She took it and climbed out of the transport, and then he entered the code on the side of it to close the hatch from the outside.

  “This way,” he said.

  He led her along the road for nearly a kilometer, before peeling away from it and moving into some brush. There was a light footpath here, and he followed along it, pausing every hundred meters or so to listen for activity. He kept the rifle ready to fire, glancing into the scope every so often.

  Thirty minutes passed without incident, allowing them to begin drawing closer to the remains of the city ahead. The brush started thinning out a little bit, revealing the remains of the town Ghost had mentioned. Structures dotted the landscape around lines of cracked cement, dislodged by vegetation but still holding its own. Most were damaged in one way or another, the windows long gone, the contents claimed centuries before. They were empty husks, dark and ugly and imposing in their size and condition. Any one of them could have trife hiding inside, waiting for someone to happen by.

  Ghost must have been thinking the same thing, because he proceeded more cautiously, keeping his eyes locked on the N80’s scope. He swept it back and forth along the street, squinting slightly to get a little bit more resolution in his vision. He didn’t speak, waving her ahead with his hand.

  They crossed the street, heading toward a large building that looked as though it had been cut in half, the debris of the levels that had collapsed surrounding it. The bottom floors were still relatively intact, offering a small measure of shelter. A long-dormant sign rested against the side of the wall:

  Holiday Inn.

  Ghost continued to scan the area with the rifle, maintaining his alertness. They were a few dozen meters from the building when he froze, the weapon shifting ever so lightly in his grip. He used his other hand to stop her, holding out his palm.

  He was tracking something.

  She stood behind him, the sudden tension nearly choking her. Her heart pulsed, counting the seconds with every two beats. She leaned to the side, peeking over his shoulder at the display.

  She could see the trife in it. Three of them moving slowly across the scope. The creatures hadn’t seen them yet. If they stayed silent, maybe they wouldn’t.

  She watched them over Ghost’s shoulder, a fresh sense of dread bubbling up when the three were joined by a dozen more. They gathered together, standing with their arms at their sides, communicating something to one another.

  Then the trife turned in unison.

  Then the demons started to run.

  Right toward them.

  A split second and a shot echoed. The first trife on the display went down. A second shot and another fell. Natalia looked past the weapon to the area ahead of them. She couldn’t see the trife yet. They were still too far away.

  Ghost fired three more times, and then reached out and grabbed Natalia’s hand, pulling her toward the building. They sprinted over to it before Ghost sighted the creatures again, firing twice more.

  Natalia pressed herself against the wall, lifting her sidearm. Her body was shaking, and she tried to convince it to calm.

  Something thudded inside the building, a loud crash too close. Ghost spun toward it with the rifle, just as a trife burst out of the open doorway and grabbed at the front of the weapon. He pulled the trigger, and its head exploded.

  He shoved his body
into her, knocking her away as more of the creatures emerged from the space. He shot one, and then lowered the weapon, grabbing a knife from his belt and throwing it into the trife’s neck. It collapsed with a weak hiss, and he brought the weapon up again, aiming it down the street.

  The first group was coming in fast, their numbers diminished but the remainder eager for the fight. Ghost squeezed off two more rounds, dropping one of them.

  Another trife came out of the building, rushing toward him. He didn’t see it.

  Natalia did. She brought her pistol up and fired, needing half the magazine to drop the creature before it reached Ghost.

  “This way,” he shouted, breaking away from the building, toward the other side of the street.

  She followed, getting past him as he slowed to keep an eye on the rear. She charged toward another building, a much smaller structure with a mix of wood and aluminum planks nailed in over the windows. She didn’t see a door.

  “Around the side,” Ghost said, recognizing her confusion.

  She changed direction, angling for the west end.

  A dark shape hurtled out of the sky, hitting her from the side. She felt sharp claws scrape against the side of her armor, trying to dig through the tough fiber to find her skin. An ugly face hissed in hers before momentum carried it away. Natalia rolled to her knees while the trife scrambled on the ground, finding purchase to pounce on her again. She raised the pistol and fired, three rounds in the chest that brought it down for good.

  Ghost’s hand grabbed her by the arm, pulling her up. They made it around the corner, to a handmade door that had replaced the original. Ghost grabbed it and yanked it open, urging her inside. A trife came off the roof, only to be shot a moment later.

  Then the Courier ducked into the building, grabbing the door and pulling it closed. A metal bar was resting beside it, and he seized it and shoved it through matching loops on the door and both sides of the frame.

  The first trife hit it, knocking it in slightly. It hit the door again, and again. It hissed, sounding annoyed. More of them joined it, jumping onto the roof, their feet pounding above them. Natalia scanned the top of the structure, making sure it was intact.

  Ghost heaved out a heavy breath and wiped his forehead. “That was close,” he said, smiling.

  “Are you even afraid of them?” Natalia asked, trying to catch her breath.

  “Very. That’s why I’m still alive.”

  They continued to pound at the door, and then the windows. It had all been installed and reinforced by somebody at some time, well enough to keep the creatures out.

  “You’re bleeding,” Ghost said, looking down at her side. He put his rifle on the ground and unslung his pack, kneeling in front of her and examining the wound.

  Natalia looked down at it, too. She didn’t think the claws had gotten through the body armor.

  “Is it bad?” she asked.

  “It’s hard to say,” he replied. “You need to take off the armor so we can clean it up. I have a kit in the pack.”

  “What about the trife?”

  “They can’t get in here. Whoever used to live here made sure of that.”

  He motioned to the corner, where old blankets and debris proved someone used to call the place home, but not anywhere near recently.

  “Why didn’t we come here, first?”

  “I didn’t see it. It’s my fault. I was too focused on the distance, watching for trife. They’ll get bored in a while and go back to whatever it was they were doing.”

  “They won’t wait for us to come out?”

  “They might, but probably not. They prefer the sport of the hunt over waiting patiently.”

  “Good thing for us, I guess.”

  “It is. Now, take off your clothes.”

  “What?”

  He smiled. “So I can clean the wound.”

  She unclasped the armor and unzipped it, pulling it off her upper half, and then shrugging out of it completely. She was still wearing a shirt and a pair of underwear beneath, but the shirt had been torn and was stained with her blood.

  She started to feel the pain of the wound once she saw the damage it had caused.

  Ghost turned around, opening his pack and rummaging through it, pulling out a small metal box and placing it on the ground.

  “Lie down,” he said.

  It was chilly without the armor on. She shivered as she lowered herself to the ground, lying prone on the old blankets. They had a sickly sweet smell to them.

  Ghost leaned over her, looking down at her body. She suddenly felt exposed, and had an urge to tuck herself in, get up, and put the armor back on. She had to remind herself that if he wanted to hurt her, he had already had ample opportunity.

  “I need to move your shirt, okay?” he said.

  She nodded, and he pulled her shirt up, folding it below her breasts. Then he opened the metal box and took out a container of liquid.

  “This is going to sting,” he said.

  “Okay,” she replied.

  He poured the liquid onto the wound. It hurt, but she didn’t make a sound. Then he took a clean pad and wiped it down.

  “I don’t think you need stitches,” he said. “It will probably scar.”

  “It could have been worse.”

  “Much.”

  He finished cleaning the wound and then spread a thick gel all over it before bandaging it. When he was done, he leaned back on his heels, looking over his work.

  “I think you’ll live,” he said.

  She lifted her head, looking down at the patch, and then up at him. “You’re a man of many talents.”

  “When you’re a Courier, you learn how to survive, or you die. Are you hungry? I have some food in my-”

  He stopped speaking when she reached up and took hold of his arm.

  “Come here,” she said.

  He stared at her, confused.

  Her heart was pounding, her body weak. She had to make her move now, or risk losing the moment.

  “Fine,” she said when he didn’t move. “I’ll come to you.”

  She pushed herself up, despite the pain in her side, wrapping an arm around his neck and using it to balance as she brought her mouth to his. He was hesitant at first, his lips moving but unsure. She stayed with the kiss, ignoring the part of her that was telling her not to go through with it. She would always love Hayden, but she had to learn to survive, too.

  He overcame his initial surprise, putting more effort into his response, returning her affection with his own desire, and letting her pull him down on top of her.

  She closed her eyes at the same time she opened her mouth, imagining Ghost’s hand was Hayden’s as it explored her body. She pretended that Ghost’s tongue was Hayden’s as it explored her mouth.

  It was the only way she could follow through with her plan. She had to do more than survive. She had to get back at the man that had cost her husband his life.

  She would do whatever it took to get Ghost to love her, and then they would go back to King.

  Then they would kill him.

  Together.

  35

  “I THINK THEY’RE GONE,” Ghost said, peering out through a crack he had opened in the doorway. “They didn’t want to wait for us.”

  He looked back at Natalia with a smile. His eyes traveled her body, unclothed as she used a clean, wet rag to wipe the blood and sweat away. She was thankful they had found the supply of water in the back of the old fueling station, hoarded there along with hundreds of cans of food by someone who had never made it back.

  “That means we can be on our way?” she said.

  She was trying to keep her mind off the guilt she felt. She had to stay focused on her goals. This was an important first step.

  “As soon as you’re ready,” he replied.

  He had risen early to search the station, cleaning and dressing before going to take a look outside. The trife were nearby then, but it had also been dark. Now that the sun was rising, they were re
turning to their group to feed.

  She grabbed her panties and shirt, quickly pulling them on. Then she started slipping into the body armor. Ghost returned to her then, helping her dress, kissing her neck as he zipped the front of it and clasped it closed.

  “I hope we have a chance to do this again under better conditions,” he said.

  “Me too,” she lied. She smiled at him. “Now that we’ve been together, I think it’s only fair that you tell me your name. Your real name.”

  “Charles,” he said, laughing. “Charles Danforth.”

  She put out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Chuck.”

  He laughed harder, taking her hand and shaking.

  “We should go,” he said. “We have another eight miles to travel, and just because it’s light doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

  She responded by walking over to her pack and picking it up. She felt a tug at the wound in her side but ignored it, getting the bag balanced on her back. Then she picked up the pistol, attaching it to the armor.

  “I put a fresh magazine in for you,” Ghost said.

  “Are you flirting with me?” Natalia replied.

  “Always.”

  He lifted his pack, getting it settled before hefting the N80. Then he pushed the door to the station open, bringing the rifle’s display up to his eyes and sweeping the area as he held it for her.

  She stepped outside, into the sunlight. The landscape looked different in the daytime. It was eerie, and at the same time possessed a certain beauty that amazed and frightened her. It was too natural. Too raw.

  There were dead trife on the ground nearby, the remnants of the prior night’s attack. Natalia noticed one of them had an open gash in its side, and it looked like its entrails had been pulled out.

  “An animal probably happened by and saw an easy meal,” Ghost said.

  “The other trife would let it feed like that?”

  He nodded. “They only attack humans and each other.”

  She looked away from the corpse, following Ghost back through the town. He was especially cautious as they passed the Holiday Inn, keeping the rifle trained on the doorway. Nothing came out.