Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands

by Brian J. Jarrett

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Terry said, looking toward the western horizon. “We don’t want to be caught out once it hits.”

  “I don’t want to stay here,” Emily said. “I don’t think I can go back in there again.”

  The thought of spending the night inside a building rank with death filled Ed with revulsion. “No, we shouldn’t. We have what we could take from there. We can find another place to stay tonight.”

  “We should find a house along the way,” Trish said. “Maybe one with a garage where we can park the cars. We can hole up there and get some rest.”

  “I like that idea,” Sam said, looking around. Chloe nodded in agreement.

  “Then let’s get moving,” Ed said. “Before night catches us.”

  Chapter Sixty

  They drove for a half an hour before finding a suitable house: a ranch style home in a subdivision just off the highway with an attached two car garage sitting beside it. Ed and Terry approached the house carefully after parking the vehicles a block away. They found the house unlocked and ransacked, but otherwise intact. No broken windows and no carriers or unfriendly survivors waited for them inside.

  After manually opening the garage door they pulled both the truck and the car into the garage, closing and locking the door behind them. They shored up the front and back doors by dragging heavy furniture from the bedrooms in front of them. A search of the garage turned up a couple of hammers and some nails, so Ed nailed the doors shut for good measure. They closed up the curtains as the sun began to set behind the hillside.

  Trish, Emily and Jasper prepared a meager dinner of tepid canned food, served alongside reconstituted rations of dried steak dinner and mashed potatoes. Ed insisted Jasper rest, but the younger man refused.

  “I have to do something,” Jasper said as he hobbled across the room. “Otherwise I’ll go stir crazy.”

  The group ate in silence as darkness overtook the land outside the house. A half hour after sundown they heard the first scream of the carriers outside. They looked around nervously at each other as a single candle burned dimly in the living room. No one mentioned the sound.

  After the food had been consumed, Ed and the boys cleaned up the empty cans and the utensils. Ed then put the boys to bed in one of the house’s three bedrooms, allowing both boys to sleep in a queen sized bed. He found extra sheets in the hall closet and outside of a slight mildew smell and some dust, the sheets were clean and soft. He covered both boys and placed a hand on their cheeks before telling them goodnight.

  “That man,” Zach began, “he killed a lot of people back there, didn’t he?”

  Ed paused, considering his answer. He’d made a habit of telling his kids the truth about all things and he saw no reason to stop that now. “Yeah, he did.”

  “Kids too?” Jeremy asked.

  Ed nodded.

  The boys went silent for a moment.

  “Why would he do something like that?” Zach asked.

  Ed took a deep breath. “I don’t know, buddy. Some people are just messed up, you know? Something’s wrong with their conscience. They just don’t care who they hurt.”

  Zach nodded.

  Ed returned a weak smile. “Try not to think about it and get some sleep. We’re going to have a long day tomorrow.” He kissed both boys on the forehead before exiting the room and closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  The rest of the group sat in the living room in silence. No one seemed to be in the mood to talk and Ed couldn’t blame them. After what had happened in the last twenty-four hours he was surprised any of them were still sane. The vision of bodies strewn across the floor, riddled with bullet holes as blood pooled around them…he could barely stand to think about it.

  “Let’s talk about what’s next,” Terry said, breaking the silence.

  Ed silently thanked Terry for taking his mind off the horrific events he’d witnessed. He took a deep breath, considering his response. He glanced at Chloe sitting across the room beside Sam. She stared at the floor in an almost catatonic state. He wondered what might be going on inside her head and decided to face it right there.

  “Chloe,” he said. She raised her head slowly. “What happened wasn’t your fault, you know.”

  She nodded slightly, but didn’t reply.

  “Beating yourself up over it won’t help,” Trish said.

  “But I knew something was wrong with him,” Chloe replied. “I knew he was bad.”

  “You didn’t know he was a murderer,” Trish continued. “A gut feeling is only a feeling. You do what you can with it, but it’s not perfect.”

  Chloe paused, thinking. “He was nice on the surface. He acted like he was our friend, but something about his eyes told me different. Before we met up with you guys we stayed with someone, a woman who lived in an old farmhouse. That night she disappeared and Lester said he didn’t know what happened to her. Two days later we found her, what was left of her anyway. Lester said the carriers got her, but I wasn’t convinced.”

  “Do you think he killed Rita?” Sam asked.

  “What do you think?” Chloe replied.

  Sam nodded. “You’re probably right. He had me fooled. I feel like an idiot.”

  “Look, you’re both kids,” Emily said. “You’re not old enough to know how to read people like that.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Chloe said.

  “Yes, it is,” Emily said.

  “If we’re going to make it through this then we’re going to have to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Ed said. “This whole thing turned into a mess because the wrong people were in charge and we weren’t working together. I see this now, more clearly than before. If we’re going to stay alive, we’re all in. All of us.” He paused, looking around the room. “There’ll be time to process it all later. Time to grieve for the dead. Right here and now though, we can’t afford that luxury. I’m going to ask now…is everybody in? Are we all in this together? Can you put this mess behind us and focus on what we have to do to survive? If not, I need to know now.”

  The room remained silent for a moment.

  Jasper spoke. “I’m in.”

  Emily nodded. “Me too.”

  “You know I am,” Trish said, a slight smile on her lips. Ed returned it.

  “Yep,” Terry said. “All the way.”

  “Chloe…Sam?” Ed said, looking their way. “What do you say? Are you guys in?”

  Chloe nodded. “Yeah.”

  Sam echoed her response.

  “Okay then. We leave tomorrow morning at dawn. We can’t travel at night anymore, so we have to make the most of the daytime. Let’s get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  They slept in shifts overnight, each person taking a turn at keeping watch throughout the night. Piercing shrieks periodically broke the heavy silence, the sound of their new and improved enemy out stalking its hunting grounds. The world had slowly given way to a new night breed, a hunter that ruled its domain completely. But the daytime belonged still to the survivors, the remaining human beings struggling to survive despite the odds.

  They ate a meager breakfast before packing up and moving on, exiting through the garage and leaving the house doors nailed shut. They wouldn’t be back this way again. The cars started easily and Ed wondered just how long that would continue. They had no mechanic in their group and treated gasoline remained a precious resource. Eventually the time would come when the vehicles would fail and he wasn’t sure what he’d do then. For now, however, luck appeared to be in their corner and Ed planned to squeeze as much mileage out of it as possible.

  The group headed back to the highway, merging onto the littered landscape. Ed drove the truck while Terry piloted the car traveling behind them. Trish and the boys rode in the truck’s cab while Sam and Chloe rode in the bed with the fuel and supplies. The others piled into the car, alongside more boxes of supplies.

  A half hour later they encountered the
aftermath of the firefight that took the lives of their former traveling companions.

  Ed slowed the truck, allowing Terry to pull up alongside.

  “Jesus Christ,” Terry said, looking at the carnage. “What the hell happened here?”

  “I don’t know,” Ed said, inspecting the scene. “We should see what’s left though.”

  “Agreed,” Terry replied. “Be careful.”

  Ed nodded. He killed the truck engine, turning to Trish and boys. “Stay here, we’ll check it out. Be ready.”

  “Always,” Trish said, touching Ed’s hand.

  He smiled before exiting the truck.

  He stepped onto the crumbling roadway and took in the scene around him. The truck sat idle, tires flattened. Flies buzzed two bodies lying on the truck’s bed. Ed recognized them, despite their bloated appearances and the damage done by scavenging carriers. Reggie and Tina. He could still see them in his mind standing behind Dario, rifles pointed at them as they stole the truck and attempted to make a run for the coast. Ed couldn’t help but feel that maybe they’d gotten what they deserved.

  He glanced at Terry who returned a knowing look. They walked together, pistols drawn, toward the front of the truck. There they found Dario’s body lying on the ground outside the cab door, flies buzzing around his open mouth and eyes. Ed felt his gorge rise as he covered his nose. The bodies had already begun to smell.

  “Look here,” Terry said, gesturing to more bodies lying on the roadway. “One hell of a firefight went down here.” He counted the bodies. “I count sixteen.”

  “Ambush?” Ed said, pointing to the vehicles sitting idle near the truck.

  “As good a theory as any,” Terry replied.

  Ed heard car doors open and close behind him. He turned to see Trish, Emily and Jasper walking toward them. The area seemed clear enough, but he kept the pistol in hand just in case.

  “I’ll check for any survivors,” Emily said, breaking off from the group.

  “That’s him,” Jasper said, pointing at one of the bodies. “The guy who got Sue and me, the one with the curly hair.”

  “Tex’s brother,” Ed said.

  “What?” Jasper replied.

  “Tex told me in confidence, after we arrived at their place,” Ed said. “He was the leader of this group, if you want to call it that.”

  “Do you recognize any of the others?” Trish asked.

  Jasper looked around at the bodies. “Yeah,” he said, pointing. “That big guy over there. He had some kinda dumbass name. He’s the guy who killed Sue and jacked up my face.”

  “We should go,” Ed said. “I don’t want to stick around here for long.”

  “Agreed,” Terry said. “We’ll collect as much fuel as we can and get the fuck outta here.”

  * * *

  They took all the gasoline that remained in the truck, stacking the plastic containers into the back of the pickup. Treated gasoline, stuff that hadn’t turned to useless sludge, remained a precious resource. After that they took a few of the M16s, along with all the ammunition they could carry. It was heavy stuff and expensive to carry, but given the world in which they now lived firepower had become a necessary evil.

  They ate whatever rations they could scarf down quickly. Knowing how limited the resources were along the ravaged countryside and exactly how dangerous it was to collect more, Ed had the group pack up as much as they could possibly fit into the vehicles.

  With the fuel and other supplies loaded—and the gas tanks topped off—the group gathered near their small convoy.

  “This could happen to us, you know,” Terry said, gesturing toward the carnage surrounding them. “These highways, they belong to road gangs now.”

  Ed surveyed the destruction, noticing the bodies in particular. He glanced toward Zach and Jeremy sitting in the cab of the pickup truck. “We need to get off these interstate roads. Take the side roads instead.”

  “How do we know they’re any safer though?” Jasper asked. “We’ll burn up a lot of fuel that way too.”

  “It’s not like the highways are clear,” Ed said. “There are so many cars and other roadblocks in the way we’ll likely make the same pace. And as far as safety is concerned, who knows? Nothing’s safe these days.”

  “Fair enough,” Jasper replied.

  “How long do you think the fuel will last?” Emily asked.

  Ed shrugged. “I don’t know. Halfway?”

  “And after that?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Might be on foot. Bikes? I’m open to ideas.”

  “That little twerp,” Terry said, referring to Dario. “He asked for this.”

  Ed didn’t argue.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  They found a house along the way that appeared to have been empty for some time. Tall grass grew in the front yard, obviously undisturbed for years. No footprints on the porch or any other sign of human life revealed itself. After Ed and Terry had cleared the house, they parked the cars in the garage, using the same hiding technique as they had in the prior house.

  After an unfulfilling and barely sustaining meal of canned chicken served alongside reconstituted peas and mashed potatoes that tasted like whipped Styrofoam, the group settled in for the night. As had become habit over the years, Ed and his family kept their packs close by, pistols at the ready.

  As night consumed the day, the shrill cries of the carriers pierced the night. Ed felt goosebumps rise on his arms. “If the sound of the original carriers was bad, this is even worse,” he said.

  “These things aren’t people,” Sam said. “Not even close. Maybe they used to be, but they’re not anymore.”

  “Yeah, I don’t even know if I’d include them in the same species anymore,” Jasper said. “These apex carriers are something altogether different.”

  “Have you seen them up close?” Sam asked. “Have you been right next to one that’s alive?”

  “Not that close.”

  “Well, I have,” Sam said. “They’re awful.” He recounted the night his mother died, when the apex carriers had taken advantage of a downed fence to invade the school and massacre those inside. He retrieved his camera from his pack, unused since that night, and showed the rest of the group the horrific close ups it contained.

  “The camera blinded them?” Trish asked.

  “For a while. They didn’t give up, but it bought us some time.”

  “Resourceful,” Terry said. “I like that. Good thinking, kid.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said, blushing slightly.

  “I keep thinking about Pastor Dan,” Jasper said, “and all those carriers he had rounded up.”

  “Hopefully he had the good sense to finally kill them when they started to change,” Ed said.

  “Who’s Pastor Dan?” Chloe asked.

  Jasper retold the story of when he and Ed had met “Pastor” Dan after barely surviving a carrier attack on the way to Kansas City. They escaped with Dan from a rabid herd of carriers, only to find out that he’d been locking carriers away inside of an old high school football arena.

  “Why did he do that?” Chloe asked.

  “He felt sorry for them,” Ed said. “He didn’t want them to hurt anyone else, but he didn’t feel like he had the right to kill them.”

  “After what they did to my mom, I want to kill them all,” Sam said.

  Silence ensued, until the faint sound of a carrier screaming in the distance broke it.

  “Do you really think there’s any way we’re going to make it to California?” Chloe asked. “And then on to Hawaii? I hate to be a downer, but it seems impossible.”

  Ed considered the question as he glanced at Zach and Jeremy. Guaranteeing they would be successful felt like a lie. “I think so,” he said and that much was true. “I hope we can. But yeah, it’s going to be tough.”

  “Fair enough,” Chloe said. “I hope that when we get to Hawaii they have fried chicken there. It’s been forever since I’ve had a good chicken leg.”
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  The group laughed, lightening the collective mood. The horrific events of the previous day were still palpable but temporarily out of mind.

  “What if the whole thing is a hoax?” Emily asked. “I don’t want to be a downer either, but somebody’s gotta say it. How do we know it’s real?”

  “We don’t,” Ed said.

  “So we’re just going on blind faith?”

  “I wish I had a better answer, but it is what it is.”

  “Way I see it, we don’t have much to lose,” Terry said. “Suppose it’s all bullshit; then we figure it out from there. But if it’s not, then I might finally get that Hawaii vacation I always said I wanted.”

  Emily smiled. “I like the way you think.”

  The group fell silent again in the darkened room. “We should get some sleep,” Ed said. “We have a long way to go still and we need to make the most of the daylight.”

  “I’ll take first watch,” Terry said.

  The others agreed and said their good nights.

  As Ed lay awake next to his family, he considered the doubts that Emily and Chloe has raised. What if the entire story was a hoax? They could be walking into a trap. Or they might just as likely find nothing but an empty port. No ship, no captain and no passage to their safe haven. Where they might go after that he had no idea. At the edge of the continent they could run no further. To the north and south, mystery awaited them. Going back the way they’d come would only take them right back into the same storm from which they’d come.

  They’d put their faith in so many other places. St. Louis had only been a respite from the wastelands and Kansas City had turned out to be a prison. If Hawaii didn’t play out…

  He didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused on clearing his mind. But the events of the prior day clouded his thoughts. The dead, staring eyes of all the people Lester had killed accused him. Why had he allowed a maniac into their group? As much as he told himself he couldn’t have foreseen what would happen, he couldn’t help but shoulder the blame. And he could only imagine how Chloe and Sam felt, bringing him into the fold.