by T. K. Malone
Free World Apocalypse
Book 1 Fugitive
Book 2 Citizen
Book 3 Captive
Book 4 Genesis
Extras - Book Zero - Prequel
Free World Apocalypse - Genesis
T.K. Malone
Copyright © 2017 by T.K. Malone
All rights 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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Facebook group: Black City Riders
Email list : Black City Riders
Contents
1. Connor’s Story
2. Connor’s Story
3. Connor’s Story
4. Teah’s Story
5. Teah’s Story
6. Zac’s Story
7. Teah’s Story
8. Teah’s Story
9. Teah’s Story
10. Zac’s Story
11. Zac’s Story
12. Zac’s Story
13. Teah’s Story
14. Teah’s Story
15. Teah’s Story
16. Teah’s Story
17. Teah’s Story
18. Zac’s Story
19. Zac’s Story
20. Zac’s Story
21. Teah’s Story
22. Zac’s Story
23. Connor’s Story
24. Teah’s Story
25. Karina’s Story
Hey, thanks - I hope that was a trip worth taking
1
Connor’s Story
Strike time: plus 10 days
Location: Aldertown
Connor stared down the barrel of Grimes’ sawed-off shotgun. A shot rang out, cracking across Morton Valley, startling a flock of band-tailed pigeons that burst into flight from within the overgrown shrubs packed in behind Saggers’ vegetable patches. Then Nathan Grimes’ head exploded. Flinching, Connor raised his arms, but blood and brains splattered over him, nonetheless. Grimes’ body pirouetted, hung still for just a moment, his rifle flying through the air, and then, like a teetering tree, his corpse finally slumped to the ground.
For a moment, Connor stood still, confused. He touched his forehead but found no hole, just Grimes’ gore plastered all over himself.
“It’s got to stop,” he whispered to himself, to Sable, and he looked up at the graying sky, at the pigeons now swooping in majestic arcs, in search of somewhere peaceful to settle.
More shots sounded, scattering the birds farther. Connor heard shouts and the barking of orders, the sounds of confusion, but couldn’t tear his eyes from Grimes. One step at a time, he backed away. Shivers ran through his body as fear grabbed and throttled any sense out of him. Then he ran, straight through Saggers’ garden, hurdling his crops, forging through the undergrowth, until he crashed into the forest.
Once within its redwoods his way became clearer, but he slowed his pace until he eventually drew to a halt and slumped down against one of their mighty trunks. Breathing in great gulps of air, he began to feel waves of tranquillity mellow his panic as Sable flooded his bloodstream with calming oxytocin.
“Maybe that’s it,” he muttered. “Maybe I should just vanish—keep myself to myself.” He wondered whether he was the reason for all the senseless killing, whether he was the reason why Banks was blasting his way through the Hell’s Gates, and whether Sable was truly the prize they were after.
The snap of a twig made him start. Scrambling to his feet, he looked around like a frightened rabbit but couldn’t quite believe what he saw—not ten feet from him stood Zac.
“So, brother of mine,” Zac said, “some kind of mess you got yourself into, there.” He smiled, put his rifle down and opened his arms. Seconds passed while Connor tried his best to comprehend what he was seeing, and then he dashed into his brother’s arms. “So, tell me...” Zac’s cheek nuzzled into Connor’s hair. “Do I have to kill you? Has the machine taken you over? Or are you still that annoying gridder that I knew and loved?” Connor wondered whether Zac would crush him, wondered if those were tears he felt dripping into his hair.
Connor felt his own tears come, tears of relief, of a love so powerful that he never knew he had it locked away. He sniveled, trying to say the words he felt, but none was good enough, none captured the entirety of his relief—the enormity of his love. He heard Zac stifle a sob, but his brother couldn’t hide his shoulders shaking, nor the wetness of the cheek he pressed so hard against Connors.
“Not sure there are gridders anymore,” Connor managed to say.
His brother scoffed, “Ain’t that the truth.” Zac pushed him to arm’s length, looking him up and down, his eyes streaming and red. “You seem very… What’s the word? Connor-ish, that’s it. You seem very Connor-ish—not the freakish monster I was told to expect.” He grinned through his sobs.
“Monster?”
Zac led him back to the redwood Connor had at first slumped down against, and there they both sat, Zac offered him a cigarette.
Connor nodded and took it. “How’d you get out of Black City?”
“Long story, Brother; a long, long story. The short version? I made a bargain with Charm. He’d always get the nod—know when the bombs were gonna drop. How about you? How come you’re out of the bunker…compound, or whatever it is?”
Connor took a draw on his smoke. “Charm vanished, then we found a trail, a way that led out.”
“Why? You must have been safe enough in there.”
“Because… Because Banks was blowing the gates.” Connor hesitated. “No, I think it was Charm leaving that spooked everyone. He gave Sable access to the computer system and then vanished.”
“Ha, there you have it: Charm again. Everything always comes back to that man.”
Connor fidgeted uneasily. “Why would you want to kill me?”
“That?” Zac took a puff on his smoke. “They told me that…Sable… I suppose I best get used to calling her that. They told me she’d be in charge by now, that she’d be done with your body and you’d be decaying into some kind of a zombie.”
“Really? What do you think now, then?”
Zac pursed his lips. “Now? Now I think you’re the same little brother you’ve always been—trouble.” He laughed for a moment before he jumped to his feet. “So, you coming?”
“Where to?”
“Back to Aldertown. Hopefully, Billy and Spritzer would have smoothed over Nathan Grimes’ death. Hopefully, I’ll have my club back, but if not, we’ll go our own way. Ain’t no one gonna stop us. Me ‘n you, Brother—no more separate ways. Though I’ll have to get you a jacket.” But then he scoffed again. “Strike that; I gotta get my own back first.”
“I can’t come with you,” Connor said as Zac helped him up.
“Can’t?”
“I have to find Teah.”
Zac draped his arm around Connor’s shoulders. “That’s the plan, dumbass.”
Connor’s heart leapt when he saw Sticks leaning against the front fence of the collapsed house. Billy Flynn was standing next to him, seemingly protecting him from a group of twenty or so of Grimes’ gang who were milling around across the road from them.
“What we have here,” said Zac as they ambled nearer, “is a leadership vacuum. Now, Connor, I’m all for minimal government and the like, but sometimes folk need a leader.” He spun the rifle around in his hand and fired into the sky. “A leader, Connor, is someone who has to step up to the plate and take control.”
Ahead, the bikers were now all facing them, shuffling uneasily. Some pointed at Zac
, muttering to those around them. Billy Flynn visibly tensed, Sticks too. Zac stopped walking.
“We all gotta problem here?” he shouted across at them. “Gotta problem because Nate ‘n Nathan ‘n Max are dead? Well, I got news for you: wise up, that shit’s happened. Hell, we’re in the middle of a fuckin’ apocalypse—things change fast. Anyone whose gotta gripe with me can take it out on Billy Flynn.” Zac smiled.
“Eh?” said Billy.
“Well,” Zac said, now closing in on his friend, “Billy, you’re built fer it, I ain’t. Don’t get me wrong, I can handle myself, but against this bunch of no-good degenerates?” He grinned across at them. Billy Flynn pulled Connor close.
“Y’all right?” he whispered.
Connor nodded.
The standoff seemed complete. Sticks muttered “Connor” under his breath.
“Gino?” Connor asked, and knew the answer the moment Sticks looked away.
One of the bikers broke ranks, stepping out into the road. He looked as wide as he was tall; long, black hair draping over his leathers, and the colors they displayed—a sawed-off in his hands and murder in his eyes. “Thought you didn’t want the gavel, Zac. Thought you was done with our club.”
“You thought right, Tictac.” He lofted his eyebrows and flashed the man a smile. “My new club could sure use some muscle, though.”
“Why’d you shoot Grimes?”
“Technically, Loser shot—”
“Just answer the question,” Tictac growled.
“A big old shotgun pointing at my brother—that not give you a clue?”
Tictac rubbed his stubbly chin. “So…that’s Connor, eh? That’s your brother?”
Zac took a step forward. “It is, and tell me, Tictac, at what point did Cornelius order his death?”
“Cornelius?”
“Guess Nathan didn’t tell you everything. Pauly? Where you hidin’?”
“Just here, Zac.” Pauly shouldered his way through the melee. “And no, it wasn’t common knowledge about Cornelius, just the table, Zac, and you took a good chunk of that with you when you buggered off—all citizen-like.”
Pauly looked pissed off, his lips tightly drawn, and his olive eyes squinting in the late afternoon sun. He went and stood beside Tictac, thumbs looped into his belt-eyes. “You left me with that fuckin’ idiot Grimes, Zac. Now, where the fuck’s Noodle?”
“Hang on,” said Tictac. “If Cornelius is still alive, that means Grimes weren’t the MC.”
“See, Tictac,” Pauly said. “I told you, you weren’t stupid. Hell, no, Grimes wasn’t in charge—he wasn’t nothing but a bully.”
Billy Flynn visibly relaxed. “Are we all cool here?” he shouted. “Cos we got a truckload of civilians that need resettling, and they could do with it before nightfall.”
“Civilians?” Pauly asked, now clearly confused.
“Been a long road, Pauly,” said Zac. “A long and lonely road. Billy’s right, though, we have got folk who need some help. Hell, the whole damn world needs it. We got a choice, Pauly, Tictac, all of you: we can be the muscle—like I said—around the table, and we can use it to rebuild what the governments have destroyed. We left an army behind us—The Free World army—but they’re coming. They’re coming to own every single damn one of us, just like they did before.”
Murmurs, mutterings, a clap that started but soon petered out. The biker’s response stuttered as Pauly raised his hands.
“Fine words, Zac—fine, fine words, but we’re bootleggers, smugglers.” He hesitated. “We’ve always been fair, mind.”
Zac shook his head. “Not what I heard, Pauly. Not the mutterings I got from my time in Christmas. I heard Grimes was quite the dictator.”
The mutterings grew louder. Billy Flynn drew alongside Zac. Sticks shuffled along to Connor.
“Where are the others?” Connor asked him out of the corner of his mouth.
“The big fella told them to go back to the basement while things were brewing up. Only thing that saved our skin was the sniper up in the trees—he laid down a line they couldn’t cross. They are a mighty fearsome bunch, though I get the feeling they want to follow your brother, but there’s something holding them back.”
“Gino—”
“Took my bullet,” Sticks said, his tone final. “I wonder what it is.”
“What?”
“What’s holding them back.”
“Gotta feeling we’re going to find out soon,” Connor muttered.
Zac had walked right up to Pauly, the two now standing toe-to-toe. “Quite the dictator,” he hissed.
Sweat beaded on Pauly’s brow. “Grimes wanted it run slick, Zac.”
“Beating slick? What else? Take any advantages? Noodle told me that Christmas was under your eye.”
“If someone got outta line. Listen, Zac—” Pauly bowed his head and spat on the road. He slowly looked back at Zac, clicking his jaw, loosening his shoulders. “Listen, if you want to take me to task, like y’took Nathan—if you wanna go all cowboy on me—then I’ll tell you, ain’t gonna be as easy. I fight dirty.”
Zac rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet. The bikers had all fallen silent, the challenge having been thrown down. Then Zac’s shoulders relaxed, and he looked up at the slope Loser was hiding in. “Say,” he said, “you reckon you could run Christmas right?”
“Sure.”
“And if we were to engage the services of one Ethan Saggers, what then?”
“I reckon we’d clean up.”
“Then, what say we fight for that world?”
Pauly started nodding, but then stopped, his eyes narrowing. “Just one thing, Zac.”
“If you’ll tell me somethin’.”
Pauly cocked his head. “Fair enough.”
Zac looked around at Billy. “You wanna ask him, or should I?”
Billy grinned. “Nope, you go.” Billy ran his fingers through his hair. “On second thought, let Pauly go first.”
“How come?” Zac asked.
“In case.” Billy signaled up into the trees.
“You’re right. Pauly?”
Pauly shuffled his feet, widening his stance, as though set to swing. “Sure, I’ll go first. But if—and I’m only saying if—we do agree to you being in charge, will it really be you…or Cornelius?”
Zac cranked his head to one side, loosening his neck. “You’ll answer to me; my problems are my own.”
“So, you might take orders from Cornelius?”
“He controls the largest army we got—I might have no choice. You see, Pauly,” Zac continued, and he raised his voice so the others could hear, “all of you, I’ve seen The Free World army gathering. We need everyone: convicts, farmers, bikers—everyone, and even then we’ll still only have a slim chance.”
Now the “yeas” started sounding.
“I suppose,” Sticks whispered, “that hatred of The Free World tops any disagreement they might have between ‘em. You know, he might just get this done.”
“That he might.”
Pauly relaxed. “Fair enough,” he finally said. “What’s your question?”
Zac sneaked Billy a grin, shook his arms, as if readying for a fight himself, and then looked Pauly square in the eyes.
“Has Loser always been an asshole?” he shouted.
A shot rang out, the road exploding by Zac’s boot.
“Guess so,” said Pauly, pulling Zac into an embrace.
But then the boom of a huge explosion echoed around the valley, clearly coming from the next one along.
On Saggers’ advice they made camp by the lake, up near the promontory. Tictac and Billy Flynn had ridden back and fetched the others, the truck now parked up with the bikers’ trucks just off the road—though they placed their bikes on the closer side, as though they were too valuable to be left out of sight. They’d stripped Saggers’ house bare—including his vegetable patch—and now sat around the single fire they’d risked setting. Connor was simply pleased to have stopped r
unning, for the moment at least. The earlier shock to his emotions had largely passed, but he still couldn’t stop watching his brother.
For years he’d only seen Zac from the gut up—he’d rarely come out from behind the bar—and Connor couldn’t remember a time when Zac had been without a drink in his hand. Now, he’d even refused a bottle of Saggers’ own whiskey. As for Saggers himself, well, Connor’s brief glimpses of the man told him he appeared to have his own set of problems. For a start, he was one “in demand” man. Every single biker appeared to want a piece of him. Connor doubted he’d be in need of a ride or protection for many years to come. The bikers, though, clearly weren’t his main problem, for a woman with a kid kept wandering up to him, pointing at the kid and then pointing at Zac.
“What the hell d’you think’s going on there?” asked Kenny.
“You noticed too,” Connor said, shuffling back to where Kenny was sitting.
“That Saggers bloke is trying to avoid asking Zac somethin’,” Kenny stated.
“No shit; I wonder what, though.”
“Somethin’ familiar about that boy.”
Connor stared at Kenny. “You’re speaking with a drawl—you going all country?”
Kenny stiffened. “No, I’m not.”
“It’s a well-known fact,” Byron Tuttle said, coming over and joining their conversation, “that you start mimicking the local dialect within a few days. Faster for weaker intellects.”
Kenny nodded furiously. “Well known,” he said. “Eh?” then he shuffled a little way apart from Byron. “If you haven’t got anything constructive to say…”