The Lucid Dreamer (Dystopian Child Prodigy SciFi) (The Unmaker Series Book 1)

by Casey Herzog

  “Sir, do you actually know where we’re going or are you just following the rumors?”

  The soldier kept walking, letting the question hang in the air for several minutes. They were finally reaching a lower section of the highway that sat on ground level and led into the remains of a tiny town with no more than a fifty empty-looking houses. It was the remains of an oil field, by the looks of it. Rusted and broken machinery lay beyond, skeletons of a time long gone. The lad’s gaze lowered as he realized what the silence probably meant, but Callum finally found the will to answer.

  “If you think I’m working with a lot of guesswork, then you’re right. I do, however, have an idea of the general direction we should head once the tundra starts. Back at the community, do you remember all of the maps we had?” Dante nodded. “This isn’t the first time I’ve considered taking you north to this mysterious organization. I thought of it even before the others even began to plan their trip into Ayia. When we were better off and didn’t know it. I questioned my plans, wondering if having you around was actually good for your wellbeing. We had no real forces to protect you if a half-decent force attacked us, and there were no specialists in your abilities among us; it felt selfish to keep you somewhere where you wouldn’t develop as you might with knowledgeable people around.”

  The boy looked taken aback, almost upset.

  “However,” Callum continued, “When I tried to follow through with my idea, I couldn’t bring myself to let you go. You weren’t just our healer; you were like a son to many of us. You’re still like one to me right now, Dante.”

  The boy with the beautiful eyes blushed with emotion and nodded.

  “Thank you, sir.” He was trying his hardest to conceal his smile, but it was a useless effort.

  Callum watched a distant flash of lightning spread across the sky. A storm was coming. He heard another sound just a moment later and knew that he couldn’t keep hiding the inevitable anymore. He spoke hurriedly next, aware that they had no time.

  “It is for that reason that when our pursuers arrive, I want you to run as fast as you can. I’m going to hold them back, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop them all.”

  “What? What are you—”

  “Listen, boy. Shut up and hear me out.” The soldier looked back over his shoulder. Still no sign of them, but the engine noise was clear now. Even Dante turned to look back, having heard it for the first time. “All that matters is that you arrive. If I die, humanity loses a damn good soldier, humility aside.” He pulled the railgun from around his back and checked to see it was in good condition. “If you die, however…you’re the key to something, I know it. Humanity needs you. Stay alive, my boy. Keep fighting and never forget me or the community. We did our best.”

  The first column of dust appeared on the horizon. The noise of engines quickly amplified from a distant purr to a gathering roar. It wasn’t an unfamiliar noise — both travelers clearly knew what was coming.

  “They’re here,” Dante said with widening eyes. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Lord Russell’s best henchmen.

  “No,” Callum said softly, “They’ve been ‘here’ for a long time, they just wanted to find the right moment.” True enough, the wreckage-filled highway had been a bad place to attack two slippery enemies, Callum knew. Especially on motorcycles. He had had no choice but to keep going, even while aware of this fact. But there was nowhere to go now. It was the end of the line, and he had to fight or they were both dead.

  “They followed us, I can’t believe it,” Dante said desperately. “I’m not going. I can help you, keep you alive. Callum, please, don’t stay back here alone…you’re all I’ve got.”

  Thorpe closed his eyes and opened them once more. It was true. Even so, he couldn’t let the boy fall into enemy hands no matter what.

  “I’m sorry. Now come on, you have to go.” He broke into a run, pulling the boy along with him and looking for an adequate place to make his stand. The town was basically one big crossroads surrounded by houses on all four sides. Two roads — one wide, one narrow and wild — led away from the place, and Callum pointed at the latter. “Take that one and keep going north.” He handed over a compass familiar to the boy. “Make their deaths mean something. Go!”

  The boy ran without another thought, keeping his rifle close to him as the roar of high-performance motorcycles became louder and began to fill the air. How did I miss it all of this time? He wondered. He felt stupid and continued his escape, tripping over the weed-ridden track that led down into a swampy ditch of sorts.

  Shots echoed from the highway behind him, and he knew the enemies were already celebrating their successful hunt. Callum will make sure that you come to regret that, you bastards, he thought. A skull looked up at him from one of the murky pools, the eyes bearing into his and accusing him of leaving his friend behind.

  Memories of the previous days came back to him, and he felt emptiness in the pit of his stomach. He was about to lose the only person left to him in the world, the man who had given him the tools to survive this new hell that humanity was left with. Johanna’s face swam in the air in front of him and he tried to shake it off. Hallucinations, he told himself, but it was all too much.

  Shit, he thought, looking at his rifle. He needed to make a decision fast. My friend is going to die. Callum had been there when he needed it the most. Fight or flee, fight or flee, what do I do?!

  With one final breath, Dante broke into a run.

  They were smart, Callum realized. There was something very military-like about how the fifteen bikers divided and stayed in an open formation as soon as they got into range. He spotted the leader through the scope of his railgun, the man who’d he fought at the Tower of Ayia. He sat on his unique chopper, a beast of a bike that roared several feet ahead of the rest, a thin but well-built figure with cold, blue eyes and a stone-faced expression. Several of his men carried grins and fired warning shots into the air, but the man at the point of the spearhead was only concentrating on reaching the village.

  Callum shifted in the top-floor window where he sat, the house he had chosen possessing a decent view of the surrounding area. If I can do this the right way, I’ll keep them here for a few hours at the very least. He looked to one side of him, where he’d laid out his belongings: the assault rifle he’d been carrying since the beginning, his battered old pistol, a grenade, two knives and a detonator. A third, longer dagger was in his belt, one he planned to use on anyone who entered the home.

  “Come on,” he breathed as the leader approached the point where the highway met the ground. From that point on, they would have less cover, but more space to maneuver and open up. They were going to surround the town, surely, but Callum was prepared for that. “Get into range…” The leader burst forth from the highway in a final rush of acceleration, and his finger wrapped around the trigger. “Bullseye— no!”

  The explosion of smoke was sudden and shocking, an entire section of the road in front of the remains of the town turning into a mess of thick smog that permeated the air and absolutely destroyed his visibility. He fired a shot off, but it was useless and blind. Only through instinct did it cross his mind to get away from the window.

  It was what saved his life.

  The entire wall exploded as the house was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, and Callum grabbed his things and ran as the home’s structure began to cave in. Dust fell from his clothes and face, and he immediately crossed the street towards another house. The noise of revving engines hit him from several directions, and he knew that his plan had already fallen to pieces. The only advantage that he’d had — the first shot — was already gone for good, and now the enemy had surrounded him without suffering a single casualty.

  “Close in, stay alert, and shoot to kill,” a strong, rasping voice said. “We only need the boy. Hurt the man if you can, he deserves it. Move out!”

  The smoke was being pulled across the houses by a gust of wind so they couldn’t see where he’d gone
, Callum realized. It was the only advantage that remained to him in such a hopeless situation. The railgun was useless now, but he still had the rifle and the detonator.

  A bike roared between two rows of houses, passing close behind the one where he was hiding. Callum pushed the barrel of his rifle out slightly through the window and aimed.

  “Gotcha.”

  The burst of fire hit the man in the back and head, and the bike came skidding to a halt as its dead driver fell to the ground. That was all I had. He ran to another window and saw the men dropping their bikes where they stood to approach on foot. Smart, he thought. They were too easy to detect on their noisy vehicles and they knew it. The staccato burst of gunfire that followed alerted Callum, and he knew that they were tightening the noose.

  Before he could step out and find another place to aim from, a man stormed inside his hideout, firing a submachine-gun from the hip and screaming.

  “Where the fuck are you?!” he screamed, and immediately spotted Callum in the corner of the room.

  “Shit,” the soldier managed to say, throwing himself into another room before he was torn apart by the gunfire.

  “He’s in here, guys!” the thug screamed from the other room, and Callum pulled his final trick.

  BOOM

  The walls shook and screams came from one side of the town as an entire section of the village collapsed under the shockwave of the incendiary mines he had set off. He had been carrying two of them from Russell’s own armory. A large fire spread from the area of the explosion, one of the thugs screeching in agony as he was engulfed in flames.

  The man in the other room cursed loudly, and Thorpe was able to throw himself out of a window and run further away from the blaze. Somebody fired at him as he ran, but he ignored the shots. If they hit me it’s all over, but until then…

  He never saw the man tackle him off his feet until it was too late.

  The wall exploded as he was slammed right through it, the thin plaster acting as nothing more than a small obstacle to the impact of his body. He landed on his back, the other man pulling out a pistol and firing at him several times. One of the bullets hit Callum in the calf and he hissed in pain, but was already moving to pull out his dagger. His attacker kicked it out of his hand as soon as he’d unsheathed it, and chopped a hand across his face. Callum stumbled into a wall, and his opponent slammed a foot into his side, throwing him into another room. The other enemies were quickly realizing what was going on, and he heard approaching footsteps.

  I can’t let them regroup, he realized.

  The blue eyes shone as they approached him, the enemy leader stepping over the rubble to pick him up and continue the beating. Twin knives were in Callum’s hands in an instant, and he slashed and stabbed forward with them, keeping the enemy leader at bay before he hopped out of another window and sprinted towards another row of homes. Small arms fire followed him. He was limping, the wound in his leg forcing him to wince in pain with every step. Warm blood was also pouring down his leg; he wondered how long he had before it was too much.

  Two men intercepted him with their guns raised, and Callum slipped into a home to one side of them. He pulled a grenade’s pin and dropped it behind him as he ran to the back room.

  BOOM

  Screams followed, and he groaned as he looked down at his leg and realized how much blood he’d lost. His vision was beginning to swim and he could barely walk now. He thought of Dante and smiled. At least he’s managed to get away, the soldier knew. Footsteps rang from behind him and he turned slowly — just in time to take a powerful punch in the face.

  “Ugh,” he managed, the fist knocking him to the ground as his attacker pulled him closer and threw another blow at his face.

  Somebody else kicked him, and he tasted blood in his mouth. Laughter filled the air and he was hit in the head with the butt of a rifle. He gasped in pain and tried to drag himself away. He slipped something out of his belt and smiled, his finger wrapping around his remaining grenade’s pin…

  ...but he ended up screaming in pain a moment later. The knife was stabbed through his palm and into the floor without warning. The grenade rolled away, useless, and he looked up to see a pair of cruel blue eyes staring down at him.

  “You fucked up, soldier,” the man’s voice rasped, and he shot Callum in the gut. “Tell your friends and the bastard Lord Russell that the Whisperer put you down when you see them in a few seconds. I am so going to enjoy this.”

  The pain was excruciating, and Callum trembled and moaned as the group of men watched as their leader lifted the gun’s aim a few inches to his heart.

  “No…” he managed. Something began to wash over him. A familiar feeling…

  The gun fired. Callum winced, but it wasn’t he that cried out or felt the hot lead enter his body.

  The Whisperer stumbled back and his men pulled him out of the room with desperate cries. They shouted threats, but then the room they were inside exploded. Screaming and yelling followed, and the enemies fled the area as automatic fire began peppering the streets from an unknown direction. They returned fire, but it wasn’t enough to stop the onslaught they were receiving.

  “You stupid, stupid boy,” Callum grinned as he regained enough strength to yank the dagger out of his hand and pull himself to his feet. He picked up the grenade from where it lay in the corner of the room and limped away as the noise of automatic fire and motorcycle engines mingled and combined.

  The enemy was retreating. Against all odds, he and Dante had won.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ~A Second Chance~

  The final count was over: three enemies dead, one severely wounded. Eleven had escaped, though Dante had also injured the Whisperer with a shot to the chest. There were probably more wounded, but they had gotten away in time.

  “Why’d you come back you fool?” Thorpe asked through grateful laughter. He sat on a rock beside the swamps outside the small town, counting the ammo they had collected from the dead bodies. There was even some food in their pockets, which both travelers decided to split into three parts.

  “I came back because you haven’t finished your job, old man.” Dante smiled and looked up. The sky rumbled. The storm that had been threatening to hit them was finally arriving. They would have to find shelter soon, but they couldn’t remain at the town now that the enemies had found them. “Rain comes, and with it, death.” He had heard the words from the soldier himself, and Callum nodded.

  “Time to go.”

  Although several bikes had been left behind, only one remained operational after the exchange of gunfire. Callum had pulled it away and dragged it behind him to the area around the swamps. They needed to get out of there as soon as possible if they wanted to use it to escape.

  They followed the swamps as far as they could before it became too unstable for their footing. There was something strange about the water, and Dante found himself wondering why he was constantly healing. Only after a quarter of an hour did he make the connection.

  “These swamps are not safe. They carry some sort of radioactive or biological agent which would be killing us if it wasn’t for my gift.”

  “No wonder I feel queasy. Come on.”

  Dante quickly got away from the sickly pools for the same reason he avoided the acid rain that fell during storms or being shot at: while he knew he could heal himself from sickness and injury, by no means did he believe himself some kind of immortal that was exempt to the rules of survival. Other children who had traveled with him hadn’t been quick to grab the concept. He was a human with abilities, not some kind of God.

  They returned to the road, and Callum looked back. The town was already some distance away; the rare, lively moment of chaos and death having faded and its peaceful façade returning. It was the common tale of Earth after the war had torn it apart; a planet awoke and fell asleep, where it had previously been continually active and in motion. The Outsiders’ final attack in which they had released most of their arsenal of projectiles
into the atmosphere had been the death of the planet. Those that didn’t return to the ground to blow it apart and kill millions, detonated in the sky and released clouds of biological agents which either killed or transformed the humans and animals caught by them.

  “We haven’t seen the Coalition for a while; it’s strange, considering all the noise we’ve been making,” Dante thought out loud.

  The Coalition, despite being the force that had turned the tide of the war, was now yet another life-threatening entity to worry about when out in the wastelands. They cared little for the identity of the life-forms in the crosshairs of their vessels, only that the world was cleansed of the subhumans. Callum did not doubt for a minute that if a Coalition plane flew past now, it would kill them on sight without asking questions.

  Better to kill a thousand innocents, than let a dangerous subhuman roam free was their motto. Not officially, but it was clear to the survivors of the world that the Coalition’s orders were to rinse the world of undesirables.