Free World Apocalypse - Genesis

by T. K. Malone

  “Ain’t stopping you movin’ through.”

  “That you aren’t,” Teah shouted, then took another draw on her smoke. She heard a rustling in the undergrowth to one side of the road and spotted a man in full combats leaning against a trunk, his machine gun trained on her.

  “Why’d Spike die?” he asked.

  “You trust me to tell the truth?”

  “You did when you could have swung, if I recall correctly. Took the blame fer Grizzly ‘n Morrow when you could have blamed him.” He pointed his gun at Jake.

  “That I did.”

  “Why?” the man demanded.

  “Didn’t want to start out on a lie, ‘sides, thought I was going to dance fer you, anyways.”

  “Why’d Spike die?” he asked again.

  “Way too cocky,” she said. “Just marched up that ridge like he was immortal. Easy pickin’s fer a sniper.”

  “Sounds ‘bout right.” And the man turned away.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “To do what we do—watch the ridge.” He slipped back into the forest.

  Teah glanced around but could see no one else. She stepped out her smoke and walked back to Cornelius’ Jeep. Jake gave her a slight nod as she jumped back in.

  “It’s a start,” Cornelius announced, and drove the Jeep on.

  “What was I supposed to do? Shoot the fuckin’ group of them? We might need ‘em, and naturally, I don’t wanna be a wastrel.”

  Cornelius banged the steering wheel and let out a loud laugh. “You’ll do,” he said.

  They soon began their cautious descent toward Lester’s mine, and every now and then she caught a glimpse of the source of the billowing, black smoke that she now realized was hanging low over Morton Valley. It looked like the whole valley side was ablaze, and her heart sank, assured no one could have survived. Cornelius didn’t seem in too much of a hurry, not that a hurry would’ve helped. The road down, twisted and turned, and in places had plain given up enough for sections of it to have slipped down the hillside. Soon, the stench of destruction enveloped them, the smoke drifting in blurring their vision. Cornelius slowed further.

  “For all we know there’s an army out here somewhere,” he growled.

  “’Cept the whole place is quiet, ’part from that crackling sound. No, if they was here, we’d be dead already. Guessin’ they used the drones just like they did on Morton and Aldertown.”

  “Except there’s no folk to ‘nap,” Cornelius pointed out, pulling to a halt around a hundred yards short of the raging fires’ reach. “What’s happened has happened, and it’s over.” He grabbed a machine gun from the back of the Jeep and jumped out, Teah soon falling in step beside him with Jake on her flank and the rest spilling out of the convoy’s vehicles and following on foot.

  “Looks like a load of drones took a beating,” she muttered as they reached the start of the devastation, where Teah stopped. “We’re being watched,” she muttered, and waved for those behind them to take cover.

  “What do you want to do?” Cornelius hissed under his breath.

  “They Zac’s gang’s bikes over there?” Teah pointed to a pile of wreckage.

  “Damn. What a waste.”

  From within the devastation a huge figure got to his feet, silhouetted black against the orange glow of the flames and the low sun that had fled to the end of the valley. His movement was familiar, as was his frame, and Teah let her rifle slip from her hands as her breathing stopped. “Good God,” she whispered as Cornelius and Jake leveled their guns.

  “Billy Flynn,” she cried out and ran forward, her arms open wide, soon crashing into the hulk of a man she’d so missed. Tears filled her eyes as—amongst the carnage all around them—she found elation lifting her heart. “Billy; Billy Flynn,” she muttered, over and over. The big man enveloped her in his great arms, almost crushing her, his own joy plain to feel. She heard guns being laid down around her, then Cornelius’ booming voice greeting Noodle and Loser before Billy pushed them apart, grinning down at her, and almost dragged her to the entrance of Lester’s mine. And there returned a confusion of memories, for now the place was well-lit, swept clean, and showed no more than a damp outline where Ned’s body had been.

  And there was her Clay.

  “Mom!” he shouted, and ran into her arms.

  She sank to her knees, crushing Clay in her embrace, sobs racking her body—the impossible had happened. Burying her head into his little shoulders, she cried “Sorry” over and over, unable to see or hear, to comprehend anything else around her. This was her everything. After being shoved around, manipulated, forced away from rescuing him, the shock of having him in her arms, of him just being here with her, was just too much. Teah’s bones seemed to turn to jelly, the tidal wave of her pent-up emotions beyond what she could cope with. Here he was, in her arms, and she could make neither head nor tail of how.

  “Clay. Who? How?” was all she could manage.

  “My pa rescued me,” he said, proudly.

  “Zac,” Teah cried as fresh sobs racked through her.

  Finally, she pushed him away and held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. His beaming, soot-smudged face stared right back at her.

  “I’m so, so, sorry,” she almost whimpered.

  “What fer? Ethan and Hannah took good care of me—though I lost Whistle somewhere.”

  And then Saggers was in her arms, Clay squirming between them, and she felt Hannah’s arms around her.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” the woman said. “Never in a month of Sundays did I think I’d say that.”

  “Or me hear it,” Teah sobbed.

  Eventually, Teah stood, sweeping Clay up in her arms. She looked around the old mineshaft. “Where’s Zac?” she finally asked, nerves and trepidation rising within her. “Connor?”

  “They went down the mineshaft,” Billy told her, taking her hand and leading them on and farther into it, but she was soon stumbling then running ahead, Clay gripped in her arms, the walls flashing by in a blaze. Without quite knowing how, she found herself leaping the sleepers of a railroad track along a narrow passage, Billy’s footsteps close behind, until a second set of rails appeared to one side, then a wagon and an open, iron gate. In a flash, it was all behind them, a sheet-metal wall ahead, a door within it left ajar.

  “So, this was what Lester was hiding,” she muttered, and put Clay down. She ran her fingers through her hair, smoothed her old coat—Lester’s old coat—in a feeble attempt to smarten herself up, the prospect of being reunited with Zac, with Connor, after all these years straining her nerves. She took a deep breath and made to go through the steel door, but Billy Flynn grabbed her arm.

  “A lot’s changed,” he muttered, and Teah’s heart sank.

  Of course it had. Ten years was a lifetime. Did he really think she expected things to have stayed the same? She looked up into Billy’s attentive gaze and wondered exactly how much, but then she nodded and bit her bottom lip.

  “Someone give me a rifle,” she shouted back at the sizeable escort she now saw had followed her, and she grabbed the offered gun. Tipping the cattleman low, she took Clay’s hand. The little guy looked up at her, and Teah gave him a wink, forcing a smile to her lips. “Glad to have you back, partner.”

  “Sticks don’t break,” he said, and Teah did a double take.

  She remembered that saying but couldn’t be sure from where. Somehow, she knew she’d said it when she’d been most desperate, when she’d been staring up at Lester on that fateful day.

  “Sticks don’t break,” she repeated, and squeezed his little hand.

  Once through the steel door, she came into a new, brighter, and much cleaner tunnel, a conversation coming from farther along. As she stepped out toward it, the presence of her impromptu gang at her back instilled some much needed courage. She and Clay had been through so much, endured so much. Whatever had happened to Zac, whatever had changed, Teah knew with certainty that they’d survive, and with that thought ri
nging in her head, she realized she was now staring at a strange man before her, standing smack bang in the middle of the corridor. Something about him was odd, though, although his appearance seemed a perfect match to the sterile surroundings.

  “At last we meet,” he said.

  “And who might you be?”

  “Kirk. This way, please.” He pointed to an open door beside him.

  But then she heard Zac’s voice shout her name, followed by a scrambling sound, although it was Connor who spilled through the door. Before she knew it, he’d brushed the rifle out of the way and was in her arms.

  It felt so right, like a vast part of her had been healed, just his being there making her feel whole again. It made her remember the powerful draw she’d felt for him since she’d rescued him that day in the sewer. It seemed like an almost tangible force between them, something that brought them together as one.

  Though she’d closed her eyes, she somehow knew Zac was now standing there in the corridor. Her heart skipped a beat, then she opened them.

  There he was, roguish, rough and mere yards away. The years seemed to have been kind to him, though she reckoned he needed a good bath. Yet there was a haunted look to him, a curtain of awkwardness that hung between them. Connor pushed himself from their embrace and stood by her side, Clay on the other.

  “You’ve met your son?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he said, and took a step forward.

  “Been a long time, Zac.”

  “A very long time.” He made to step nearer but then hesitated.

  “A lot of things have changed,” Teah said, but he shook his head, a smile creeping onto his lips.

  “No, they haven’t.” His voice was now surer, as was his movement when he rushed into her arms. Teah let go of Clay and Connor and returned Zac’s crushing embrace. Her whole body heaved with relief as a decade of frustration fled her heart, her legs nearly giving way as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Teah, I…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, over and over, and she felt Zac’s body shiver.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “No, Zac, no it doesn’t; nothing does.” She grabbed his hair and looked deep into his eyes. “Nothing matters, not anymore. I don’t know what the future may hold, but nothing matters now, Zac; nothing at all apart from Clay.”

  Zac’s stare seemed to hold a moment’s confusion, but then he thinly smiled before nodding in agreement. She softly stroked his cheek, traced the line of his lips and cupped his face in her hands. “Whatever happens, I’ll always be yours.” At which a smile blossomed across her face as she dropped her hand to his. “Shall we go and save the world?”

  8

  Teah’s Story

  Strike time: plus 13 days

  Location: Preppers' Compound

  Teah looked out from the stockade. All her plans were laid, all her gambles taken. Two nights and a day, that’s all they’d had—her, Connor and Zac. Now, Zac was gone. His part of her plan lay elsewhere, and although it had wrenched her heart to ask him to leave, it had also offered them both a way out.

  “Guess I’m just not supposed to be happy,” she said to Kelly.

  “You and me, both. You think him and the Meyers woman had a thing?”

  “She couldn’t hide it, nor could he. It’s fucked up, that’s what it is, but what did I expect? Ten years; he probably thought I’d gotten cold feet and buggered off. Probably thought I was dead—why wouldn’t he find someone else?”

  “You didn’t,” Kelly pointed out.

  “Nope.” Teah took out a smoke. “But I thought about it.”

  Kelly shifted around, clearly intrigued. “Spill; now.”

  Teah scoffed. “Nothing to spill. I thought about Saggers, wondered if it could work, wondered if I had a future with him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing much. He was in love with Hannah the whole time. Worked out fer the best in the end.”

  “For Saggers?”

  “For Saggers.”

  “You got me.” Kelly smiled.

  “And Clay.”

  “And Trip, and if I’m not very much mistaken, that soldier who went along with Zac had a thing for you.”

  “Sticks?”

  “Yeah.”

  Teah took a drag on her smoke. “You know something, I got a thing fer him, too. When I was running he was nice to me, him and an old woman. Didn’t want nothing, just nice.”

  “Best kind. You think they’ll…” but Teah was no longer listening. She was reminding herself what was at stake. The Free World army was on the move, and she’d risked everything on her plan, but even Cornelius had had to admit that their chances had only improved from zero to miniscule.

  She was tired now. Sleep had been shoved to the furthest recesses of her mind. They’d spent both nights and yesterday preparing as Cornelius’ army of convicts and warders had swelled their ranks. Surprisingly, there had been little friction between them and the preppers. Everyone knew the risks; everyone secretly dreaded the outcome.

  They’d almost emptied the mine of guns, combats and grenades—the lot—and all the preppers knew their way around the equipment, but a lot of the convicts were worse than novices when it came to anything but a fist or a shiv. They were allocated the stockade to patrol and a machine gun to fire, and Jake got his wish. Fodder, he’d called them, and fodder they were, though Teah now knew the stockade wasn’t the innocent wooden wall it appeared to be.

  Appearances could be deceptive, and Spike had arranged it perfectly. The wooden poles of the stockade were simply cladding that hid a strong concrete and block wall. A reservoir: that’s what she’d likened it to, and now she knew the truth of it.

  “You trust Jake?” Teah suddenly asked.

  “Trust him?”

  “Yeah. I’ve spent most of my years out here despising him, well, thinking about it, up until a week or so ago. Thought he was trouble and that his trouble was aimed at me. Now, when I look back at it, I think what he said was true, that he was protecting me, if protecting ‘n manipulatin’ are the same thing. Lester too, I suppose, but at least he taught me how to fight dirty.”

  “Thought you knew how to do that before. Thought that was yer job.”

  Teah grunted. “Different out here. In Black City you had kickass armor and headgear, and a gun that took no prisoners. You had drones overhead to tell you exactly what was happening around you on the ground. Out here? Well, if you ain’t prepared, you die.”

  “Think your underestimating it. I think it’s much the same. You reckon they’ll come today?”

  “I’d bet my ass on it. Jake radioed back to say the convoy had left Morton. You never answered my question: you trust Jake?”

  Kelly shrugged. “Much as I trust any man. Don’t like the way he sloped off, though.”

  “Nope,” Teah agreed. “Seemed a little convenient. Though the Meyers woman went kicking and screaming; that was genuine. She definitely didn’t want to go.”

  “You think Zac and her will—”

  “Like I said: I think I was naïve to think ten years didn’t matter.”

  “’Specially when tomorrow seems so far away.”

  Teah walked toward the home she’d been allotted. Every minute seemed to drag, the impending doom of a vast Free World cloud hanging over her head. She climbed the couple of steps onto the stoop and pushed her front door open. Cornelius was there, sitting in the planked-wood room, just by its stone hearth, and he was sitting with Clay. She hadn’t been able to shake him off, but for all his sins, he’d taken to being a grandfather like a duck to water. They were playing some game with what resembled dice. She hadn’t kicked up a fuss about his constant presence, and she couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Cornelius had aged in a day, like he’d gotten what he’d been hanging on for.

  “All set?” he asked, looking up.

  “Claymores planted; shift's done; yup, everything’s set.”

  “They’re arrogant,
that’s what they are,” Cornelius said, sitting back. “You’ve taken advantage of that well, and that’ll be their undoing.”

  “They got more men, more big guns—”

  “But they’ve lost their drones. Wasn’t smart them getting all gung-ho and settin’ off without properly thinking it through.”

  “Nope, but we only know our own plan, not theirs.”

  “Same as any war. Same as any.”

  “Well, I gotta get geared up and go up to the ridge.” Teah took Lester’s coat off and threw it to one side, the cattleman soon landing on it. She crouched next to Clay. “This your redemption? Playing with yer grandson?”

  Cornelius looked at her, for once not through his green glasses, which he’d left off. “Believe it or not, I do have a heart, and I don’t apologize fer anything I’ve ever done. You don’t know the half of it…nor should you. Safe to say, I’ve moved anyone and everyone out of my way if they’d a mind to try and stop me. Nope, this ain’t my redemption; this is how my life should have been. We shoulda nipped The Free World in the bud while we had the chance. Now it’s too late to do it any other way.”

  “It might kill Connor.”

  “That it might.” Cornelius went back to playing with Clay.

  Teah slipped into the bedroom. It was time to get ready. She looked down at the garb she’d selected from Lester’s mine and scoffed. “Still dressin’ me, old man,” she whispered, and began to undress.

  Her combat gear felt wrong, awkward somehow. It was strange to think she’d worn similar every day back when she’d been a stiff in Black City. Just putting it on had elicited dark memories: of storming warehouses, killing the carnies, of Boz, her partner, and that fateful day at The Bay View Hotel. She knew she’d been fast, one of the best, knew she’d been handpicked to head even the most dangerous of tasks, and she knew she’d been set up.

  Adjusting the armored breastplate, she slipped on her jacket and took a breath while it molded to her body. She tried on the full-face helmet, tapping into its comms system. The darker, green tinge the night vision lent was familiar, even comfortable. Slipping on her boots and then pulling up her gloves, Teah knew she was finally ready—ready to exact a revenge that had been in waiting for a long time.