Copyright © 2019 Tyler Bunyard
All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
ISBN 978-1-7330068-0-4 (Paperback Edition)
ISBN 978-1-7330068-1-1 (eBook Edition)
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Book Design and Cover Artwork done by Damonza.com
First Printing July 2019
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Published by Tyler Bunyard
[email protected]
www.talesfrom29a.com/tylerbunyard
Special thanks to my parents and brothers
For all of the love and support
Through the best of times, through the worst of times
Your encouragement has kept me going.
You guys are the best!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Supplies and Surprise
Chapter 2: Chained
Chapter 3: An Unexpected offer
Chapter 4: Irony from the Skies
Chapter 5: Breaking Records
Chapter 6: Dinner and a Show
Chapter 7: Demonstrations
Chapter 8: Earning an Offer
Chapter 9: Breakfast with Friends
Chapter 10: Click the Boot Heels
Chapter 11: Welcome to Sinwatch
Chapter 12: Hesitation
Chapter 13: Questioning the Worth
Chapter 14: Failing Sucks
Chapter 15: The Past and the Present
Chapter 16: The Days Gone By
Chapter 17: Breach
Chapter 18: Never Split the Party
Chapter 19: Fight or Flight
Chapter 20: Broken Hearts and Breaking Parts
Chapter 21: Humanity Lost
Chapter 22: A Leap Forward
Chapter 23: Uncovering Worlds
Chapter 24: Waiting
Chapter 25: More than they can Chew
Chapter 26: Blocked by a Storm
Chapter 27: A Second Opinion
Chapter 28: The Boys are Back in Town
Chapter 29: Fixing an Escape
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter 1
Supplies and Surprise
Karrel had become too accustomed to the sound of bones crunching beneath his feet. He no longer listened to the pops and cracks. It was unimportant. The only thing that mattered right now was getting to the next destination, and that task was burned into his very soul. He had learned much over the years, one of those things being survival. A moving target was harder to hit, having no home meant being harder to track, and most importantly in this ruined world, nomads were just as likely to find supplies as they were to turn up dead… Unfortunately, Karrel needed supplies. He needed them badly.
Checking his backpack, he scrounged through all of the canisters, bandages, pots, and pans. The leather container was small in size but had a deceptively large amount of storage space, and it contained everything that he could call his own.
“Damn,” Karrel sighed.
There was enough bottled water in his pack to last him another week, but his food was all but gone. Either his next destination had something to eat, or starvation was in his imminent future.
The burnt landscape that Karrel found himself trudging through had many small hills that limited his range of vision. He needed to see where he was going, and as it turned out, there was a nearby pillar of stone. Deciding that it was an acceptable vantage point, he began the short climb.
Karrel was seventeen years old and stood at about five feet, eleven inches. His dark black hair was minutely highlighted with a fiery red color. He hadn’t dyed his hair, though. The red strands just appeared one night – the same night that his eyes turned red as well. He tried to never think about that evening as there were few things that could hurt him as badly as that memory. Unfortunately, the red color in his hair was a constant reminder of what happened. His family… His friends… His city… Gone. He pushed the memories to the back of his thoughts and decided to focus on the climbing.
He had slightly tanned skin, which was unusual given the current state of the sky. He usually attributed the color to his diverse family line, not that diversity meant much in this day and age. The clothes he had donned contained many pockets, embodying the survivor’s motto: practicality over style. Though, he did have a few stylish shirts hidden away. Old habits, he supposed.
Karrel continued up the mound of rocks. This sort of thing was a breeze for him. He was fairly muscular and took pride in how well conditioned he was. He could easily run a few miles without breaking much of a sweat. Unfortunately, because of his build, this meant that protein was high on his list of needs. He hoped that his next destination would hold some meats. Chicken, tuna, or any previously-living entity that was now confined to a small three-inch can would be a godsend at this point.
Sadly, his only option was to continue forward, and as he reached the top of the mound, he scanned the landscape. Ahead of him, off in the distance, was his next destination. It was a small, broken down city, and from what Karrel could see, he assumed that it would be a ghost town. The buildings were all run down and showed signs of being attacked by one of the many horrors now occupying the once beautiful Earth. The city showed the usual signs: burn marks, missing walls, and – something else…
Wait, he pondered, what was the other tell-tale sign that this place would be unoccupied? He couldn’t put his mind on it as he progressed towards the city, his foot snapping a human femur in half along his way. Whether these remains were old or fresh was a question that would be left unanswered. The bones were too charred for anyone to know.
Lucky for Karrel, the city was small in size. It did not contain any buildings that were taller than its two-story apartments, which meant it would be much easier for him to search for the supplies he needed. Water was usually easy to come by. The things that attacked this city were not exactly the pillaging type. Complete evisceration was the name of their game. This meant that the bottled water and canned goods, at least the ones that managed to survive the attack, usually weren’t scavenged afterward. Also to his benefit, there were not too many people who had the skills to survive living outside of the now-dwindling cities. Karrel decided to start his search with a nearby, run-down house.
The small structure had a few fist-sized holes in the front of it. Its original color was white, but now it was black as ash with all of the scorch marks on it. The front door looked as though it had been bashed through from the outside by a large creature, the hinges dangling from single bolts. Karrel took note of his surroundings. It would be a pain to be ambushed in such a confined space, but everything seemed to be clear.
Entering the house, Karrel went straight to where the kitchen was located. The cabinets, luckily, seemed unharmed. This meant that if there was any food inside, it should have survived the raid. Everything else, on the other hand, was destroyed. There was a refrigerator on the floor that had been severed quite cleanly into three separate pieces. Of the few inside walls that remained intact, many were mauled, and there were several scars on them that resembled claw marks. They were huge claws, at that, around the size of a large bear. The oven had been removed from its spot on the wall and was now sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Its backside was missing.
Karrel stepped up to the cabinets with high hopes and opened them. All that remained was dust and ash. If I could survive on those, I wouldn’t be scavenging through this damned house… he thought to himsel
f. Shutting the cabinets, he decided to check the bedrooms. He crept through the living room, passing what was possibly the remains of a flat-screen television. It was impossible to tell what it was as the object was split into too many charred fragments. He methodically checked every one of the three bedrooms in the house. Two out of three of the rooms had entire walls missing. Three out of three did not contain any useful supplies. Disappointed, Karrel slogged his way back to the living room when something caught his eye.
Outside, a few small rocks had started to roll into view by a nearby house. The weather conditions nowadays were always unpredictable to say the least, so it could have very well been caused by the ever-present hurricane-like winds that systematically stormed outside. It could even have been one of the many small meteors that now periodically crashed down from the purple sky. Karrel figured he would have felt the impact if it was one of those, though. Regardless, he did not feel like getting ambushed by a group of bandits, or god forbid, something worse. He decided to go check it out.
Before stepping outside, Karrel reached into his right leg pocket. He pulled out a small green notebook. The front and back cover was completely blank, only showing a slight reflection off of the thick, oilskin material that it was made of. Karrel flipped through a few pages. The book’s contents held a variety of written symbols that were split into horizontally lined sections. Most of the lines were dark black, but there were a few that glowed a dim red. The contents of the book resembled a language unbeknownst to man. Though Karrel did not know the language, he understood some of the symbols in the book, specifically the runes that were glowing red. The black symbols, on the other hand, remained a mystery to him. One of the lines that was currently gleaming he could read as “Discharge.” Karrel had obtained this book the same night he got his red eyes and strands of fiery hair. Ever since that night, his life had been different, full of loss and adventure. He had been able to do a great many things he had once thought impossible, though the cost of his acquisition remained a heavy burden.
He shook his dead, pushing the memories to the back of his mind, Karrel recognized that this was no time to be distracted. The smart thing to do was to focus on the potential danger at hand, and after stabilizing his mental strength, he began out of the house.
Karrel swapped the book from his right hand and held it in his left. He kept the book open to the page that contained the line “Discharge” on it, readying his right hand near the red symbols. In the wasteland, people fought with whatever they could get their hands on. Some people fought with swords. Some people fought with guns. This green notebook was his weapon of choice. It was a lot handier than any of those other tools. Its contents allowed Karrel to attack in a way that no other person could, and its abilities had saved his life time and time again. He had come to rely on his newly found powers.
As he slowly inched his way toward the position of the rolling rocks, taking cover behind rubble whenever he could, Karrel started to get a better picture of his surroundings. The houses were all charred and beat to hell, but the small building he was heading towards was different. In fact, he didn’t think it could be considered a house anymore. Now that he was closer, he realized that only one wall of the structure remained, and the rest of it was reduced to ruins. This new knowledge relieved Karrel. Only an idiot would use a single wall as shelter, let alone an ambush point when there were so many buildings to choose from. Also, if it was one of the monsters that now inhabited the Earth, the beast would have surely smelled and attacked him by now. Karrel thought he was a little bit safer. Still, he felt the need to check around the wall just in case. He turned the corner, and his heart stopped. Staring, dumbfounded, into the eyes of Karrel, was another person.
The surprised individual was wearing black pants, a black t-shirt, and a black hoody. His hair was as dark as the rest of his clothes, and he stood around as tall as Karrel, looking to be about as young. The cigarette that he was smoking dropped from his mouth, his expression revealing that he was just as surprised to see Karrel as Karrel was to see him.
After his brief moment of shock, Karrel’s survival instincts took over. He brought his right hand closer to the red symbols in his book, simultaneously dropping the book to his left side, hiding it from view. Karrel quickly scanned this new person from head to toe, searching for a weapon. His hands were clear. He was not wearing any holsters. There was also no backpack or containers to be found on his person.
“Who are you!?” Karrel demanded.
The stranger gave a shocked response, “Who am I? Who the hell are you two?”
Before Karrel could answer, a second man slowly maneuvered out from behind the wall and placed himself behind the dark-clothed individual. This one was wearing what looked like heavy rags wrapped around his entire body. His body language told Karrel that he was trying to be covert, which confused him because the second man was now in plain sight of Karrel. This newly revealed person had a rifle in his hand. It was an older rifle, one that had seen service back in the days of what hr had been told was called the Second World War. Attached to the bottom of the barrel, there was a black, cylindrical object that could only be recognized as an electric baton. That didn’t matter at this point though; a weapon was a weapon.
Karrel focused his right palm on the symbols in his book. A copy of the text that represented “Discharge” started to emerge into thin air, wrapping around his hand and wrist, which in turn started to glow slightly. He made sure to keep these actions concealed while he readied his attack.
Before Karrel could react though, the second man grabbed his baton and raised it above his head. He started to think about what his next move was going to be. He could release his attack on the second man now and risk revealing what he was capable of to his enemies’ other potential companions, or he could save his attack for an emergency and try his luck at hand to hand combat. Karrel needed to make a decision, and he needed to make it fast. He had been in these situations before, and he knew that making the right choice could mean life or death. He opted for the hand to hand option.
However, Karrel had no time to follow through with his choice. Before he could engage, the second man brought the electrical baton down hard onto the back of the darkly clothed stranger’s skull. The baton lit up with a brilliantly bright blue light, and a loud crackle filled the ears of everyone in the vicinity. The blow knocked him unconscious in a fragment of a second. Karrel was taken back. He paused and let his guard down for a moment. Why would this man attack his friend? he thought to himself, before remembering what the cigarette-smoking stranger had asked. Two, Karrel mentally facepalmed. Who the hell are you TWO?
Realization overcame Karrel. The unconscious stranger could not have seen the man behind him. The rag-wearing assailant did not attack his friend. This really was an ambush, and Karrel was not the only one caught in it. He cracked his head around to see who was behind him, but the thought had occurred too late. A sharp jolt of pain shot through the back of his head as electricity convulsed through his entire body. That momentary falter in his defenses had allowed another to sneak up and get the drop on him. Karrel collapsed to the ground, letting go of his book, the glowing runes surrounding his hand quickly fading into the air. He fought to stay awake and was able to catch a glimpse of the rag-wearing man who had just attacked him, but the blow that he had been dealt was too much. His vision started to fail, and Karrel slowly slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter 2
Chained
Karrel groaned. He felt as though his head was an egg, and it had just been cracked open. The worst part about getting knocked out wasn’t the damaged pride or the humiliation, but the head-splitting migraine that followed afterward. It hurt to move. It hurt just to open his eyes, but he knew that the sooner he figured out how bad his situation was, the better. He surveyed his surroundings.
All of what Karrel saw around him was white. He was sitting up against the back wall of a rectangular room. In front of him, down at the opposite end, w
as a pearly white door, and all of the walls around him mimicked the door’s irritating color. He blinked, and a surge of pain shot through his cranium. He wasn’t sure if it was the head wound or the ambience of his surroundings that was causing him pain. Only two things were not bleaching his eyes in the room: the chains periodically placed around the lower walls, and a singular male person, who was bound by some of the metal shackles a short distance away from him.
Karrel attempted to reach into his right leg pocket but found himself restrained. Both of his hands had been cuffed by one of the pairs of steel plates. Chains… That could pose an issue. This was not the first time he had been captured by the rag-wearing bandits that now wandered the lawless areas of Earth. Under the conventional circumstances, he was normally able to escape with ease. Unfortunately, the thick metal cuffs around his wrists, and his current location, were snags. Usually, the bandits tied their victims up with ropes. It was much lighter and easier to transport. The white room was also new. As far as Karrel knew, bandits liked to do all of their dirty work on the spot, not in fancy, well-kept areas.
First, they would subdue their prey. Then, they would torture the victims. It was an easy way to figure out if the poor saps knew other survivors, and consequently, where the other survivors were. Finally, once they were done with whomever they captured, they would clean up their mess. This usually meant a bullet in the brain and a body being buried. In the past times, Karrel was tied up outside and was normally able to find a sharp object to cut himself free or use his green book to get himself out of the tight spot. Neither option was available here, as Karrel just noticed that his pockets were empty. His book was gone. He extended his right arm as far as he could and opened his palm to face the door. He tried focusing on his little green book. A moment passed, and nothing happened. “It must be too far away,” Karrel said under his breath.
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