by J. G. Martin
A figure approached from the outside and obviously killed one of the sentries. One of the heat sources cooled rapidly and disappeared right after the approach. That person then approached the slaver wagon with the scientist and apparently engaged in conversation with him. After a few minutes, the person released the prisoners in the wagon and firefight broke out. Maximillian could see the muzzle flashes and the explosions. He could see the prisoners engaging the slavers with small arms and then the heat bloom of the scientist blowing himself up. Then the tracers from a heavy weapon, one of the truck mounted machine guns, firing on the slavers.
Two people, presumably the hero and the girl, used the distraction to make a run for it. Upon encountering a small group of slavers who had circled around, the hero did in fact gun several of them down while running. Then he blew up a vehicle to cover their escape. Impressive work for one man. The two of them disappeared into the scrublands outside the camp. Maximillian zoomed the satellite out and saw the heat from a small vehicle probably a bike leave from about a mile from the camp site. It headed north to the main road and then stopped for a little while. Then it headed east.
Maximillian pondered who this man was. It couldn’t be a coincidence that someone showed up to rescue them right after capture by the slavers. Who else knew about the device and was after it? Was it the U.S.T.G.? But they would have sent more than one man if they knew the value of the device. Who else could possibly know?
He knew it was imperative to get the device. Their entire existence was in jeopardy if it was used for its intended purpose. They should have retrieved the device sooner and killed the scientist instead of risking it falling into enemy hands. Instead they had watched him for years and done nothing. Now the knowledge of the device was out there and others were trying to get their hands on it. Maximillian could not allow that. Father must not be threatened in any way.
As if on cue, he heard Father’s voice in his head, “First, do you have the device?”
“No Father, Doctor Carter did not have the device and the scum I hired to take Doctor Carter to conceal our involvement allowed him to be killed.”
“WHAT?” Maximillian could hear the roar in his head and staggered as it physically hurt him.
“Someone else is involved. A man intervened and rescued the daughter. Doctor Carter blew himself up to provide the distraction for them to escape. Someone else is after the device.”
“Do you know who?”
“No Father. The slavers could provide no description and it was dark so the satellite footage is all infrared. He is military or ex-military from their accounts and based on the footage.”
“U.S.T.G. perhaps?”
“I don’t think so Father. They would have sent more than one man if they knew the importance of the device. I will track him down and retrieve the daughter and get the device or its location from her.”
“It is imperative you succeed. The device could be the end of us. As my first, you most of all know what we will lose if it is used.”
“Yes Father, failure is not an option.”
“What is your next step?”
“I have other assets in play; they will find this man and the daughter for me. Then I will get the device from them and end their existence.”
Chapter 7
June 10, 2029
Near Dodge City, KS
Derek spotted their pursuers about mid-afternoon. He and Rora had been making very good time on the highway. He knew it was a risk, but time was of the essence. He had to get the device in time and get paid. He saw the small dust cloud in the side view mirror and watched as it got closer. Based on its size and speed it was getting closer quickly and they would probably not be able to outrun it. He had detoured off of the highway to see if it wasn’t really after them, but the cloud had followed. As the cloud grew closer and he could see distinct shapes in the dust, he cursed. “Burners!”
Behind him on the bike with her arms wrapped around him, Rora could hear his curse. He could feel her shift and glance backwards. Then lean forward to ask him, “What are burners?”
“Young punks on sports bikes. The modern version of a biker gang. Very aggressive and violent. They used to just race bikes but they started becoming gang related in the nineties. After the Collapse, they took advantage of their speed and mobility to prey on survivors and then race away.”
“Why are they chasing us?”
“We probably just passed through their territory and they want tribute or worse.”
“Worse?”
“You are a very pretty girl…”
She didn’t respond to that and Derek figured she was digesting what he said. He throttled the bike to max speed and started looking for somewhere to lose their pursuers. He turned the bike onto increasingly smaller roads hoping to maybe lose them. But the open terrain and lack of tree cover was making that almost impossible.
“Can we lose them?” Rora asked him.
“Probably not, we need to find a good place to make a stand since they will have us outnumbered.”
Derek saw a sign for a town in a few miles and decided that was their best option. Maybe the town had some defenses and would make them too difficult of a target for the burners. Meanwhile the burners were getting closer and closer. They burst out into a wide open plain and he could see the town in the distance. It was small and looked like it lacked any walls or fences. Not looking promising, but they had no other options.
As they drove along the highway, Derek questioned Rora. “Do you know how to shoot?”
“Of course not, guns are dangerous. They kill people.” She said with a sanctimonious tone.
“I noticed you didn’t have any problem with me killing people to save your ass.” He snapped at her.
She pouted, her feelings slightly hurt. “Just because it is necessary doesn’t make it right. Thou shalt not kill.”
“You were lucky enough to have lived a sheltered life ignorant of the horrors of the world. In the real world you have to follow Rule #4, a gun is the great equalizer. It makes the weak strong so that the strong don’t prey on them.”
Bullets zipped by the bike and Rora grabbed tighter to Derek. The burners were getting close enough to shoot at them and the town was still some distance away. But bullets were too precious for him to just fire back blindly. A shot shattered his side view mirror and she screamed. He hoped she wasn’t hit, he needed that box number. He felt her tug on the left side of his jacket and he glanced back to see her pointing off to the left.
In the distance, but rapidly getting closer, were the black clouds of an impending storm. Derek glanced over again and saw that the winds from the storm were pushing a massive and growing dust cloud in front of it. Since the Aftermath, violent dust storms and lightning storms had become common. The barren plains provided excellent fuel for the storms and they could scour an unprotected person down to the bones. Even if you were protected you could still choke to death on the dust and sand. The dust and sand could also choke a vehicle and disable it.
They needed to seek cover or be killed in the storm. If they could get to the town, the dust storm would provide time to hide. The burners would have to take cover as well, and would be more occupied with that then shooting Derek and Rora. Once in the town and off the bikes, he had the advantage and he could pick them off. Hopefully a few of them would get caught in the storm and killed, increasing his odds.
The volume of gunfire increased, shattering the tail light but miraculously not hitting them. Derek scanned the town for any shelter from the impending storm and the burners. As they hit the edge of town, he saw it. What looked like an old hotel had front doors hanging off their hinges and the doorway beyond was open. The town itself looked abandoned, as so many were after the Collapse. It was all run down and overgrown with weeds.
The storm was almost on them and the gunfire had stopped as the burners were paying more attention to the storm then Derek and Rora. He roared down the main street and angled for the hotel. He yell
ed for her to hang on as he drove up the front steps and into the building. Two burners came racing in behind him right as the dust storm filled the street and obscured everything outside, presumably catching the other burners without cover. Without cover, they would either choke to death or at least have their bikes disabled.
Derek leapt off his bike and drew his double barreled shotgun in his right hand and his Glock in the left. He stepped in front of Rora and aimed at the two burners. They were also off their bikes and pointing submachine guns at him. Both were dressed in green motorcycle leathers and green helmets. Derek noticed their bikes were also green. Must be their gang color. All four stood almost frozen in the foyer of the old hotel. It was a classic standoff and the tension was palpable.
Derek addressed the burners, “It’s not worth it. Your friends are caught up in the storm, maybe dead. It’s just us and I’ll kill at least one of you, if not both. Just walk away.”
The two burners glanced at each other. The one on the left slowly lifted his helmet revealing himself to be Hispanic and spoke, “It’s nothing personal man. Give us the girl and you can walk.”
“Not gonna happen, she’s with me.”
Before the burner could respond a steel gate slid down from the ceiling with a bang blocking the doorway. Startled, the two burners turned towards the entrance. Derek cursed as he realized what had happened. They were all now trapped in the hotel and in grave danger.
Derek broke the stunned silence, “Gentlemen we are in a Night Children lair, we need to work together to get out alive.”
The burners both turned towards him and took off their helmets. He could see that the other burner was white. The white one addressed him, “We don’t need your help. We can get out on our own.”
“Yeah, it’s just a security system. There is no such thing as Night Children.” The other chimed in.
“What are Night Children?” Rora asked quietly.
Derek answered her, “Cannibals. They trap people in their lairs, kill them, cook them, and eat them. Generations of entire families have been practicing this since the Dark Ages. They were always hiding in the shadows of society, but their numbers have grown significantly since the Collapse. They are called Night Children because they hide during the day and usually live underground. They used to only take runaways, lone travelers, and street people. People who wouldn’t be missed. But since the Collapse they will take anyone who falls into their traps.”
“That’s crap man!” The white burner insisted, “That’s an urban legend.”
“Yeah!” The other burner agreed.
Derek tried to convince them, “You need to believe it. We need to work together and be extra careful. This whole building is probably booby trapped. We need each other to get out alive.”
“Whatever, you go look upstairs and I’ll check out the kitchen.” The Hispanic burner told the white one.
He nodded and headed upstairs gun first. He headed up one of sets of stairs located on the sides of the foyer. The foyer was a large rectangular room with the entrance at one end and a set of double doors at the other. A set of stairs was on each side leading up to a balcony with an opening to a hallway behind it. A doorway was situated at the bottom of each set of stairs with another doorway on each side below the staircase. Derek looked around and could see the place was old. The wallpaper was curling and there was mold on the ceiling and walls. But there was no dust or cobwebs.
His examination was interrupted by a scream which was abruptly cut off by a loud thud. Derek glanced at the burner who had stayed in the foyer. The burner turned pale and panicked. He ran towards the double doors and burst through. As he cleared the doorway, a panel with spikes swung down from the ceiling and impaled him with a sickening meaty thunk. He gurgled once and died. Rora started screaming.
Derek tried to calm her down. She would be impossible to save if she was frozen in terror. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked right into her eyes.
“Rora, calm down. Screaming isn’t going to help. I know you are scared, but we won’t make it out of here unless we keep our wits about us. Okay?”
She kept whimpering but stopped screaming. She just stood there looking at him. He turned her so she couldn’t see the impaled body and the blood pooling on the floor. She slowly calmed down and he could see her begin to get control of herself. While she gathered herself he went over and collected the burner’s gun. It was a forty five caliber MAC-10 machine pistol. Not a great gun, but bullets were bullets.
He moved to one of the windows by the entrance and tore down the curtains. Once the curtains were down he could see all the windows had grates on the outside and inside. This place was sealed up tight. The Night Children would have a way out, but it was somewhere protected by booby traps and the Night Children themselves. Probably in the basement. The trick was getting down there alive.
“Rule # 12.” He mumbled to himself.
“What is rule number twelve?” Rora asked him quietly.
“The safest looking place is always a trap. I should have known it when all the other buildings were boarded up completely.”
“Oh.”
Derek checked the gate. It had bars of solid steel and it weighed a ton. It also seemed to be locked in place. There was no way he could budge it. Maybe they could blow the gate open. He went and dragged the sport bikes in front of the gate. Derek opened up the gas tank of one and splashed some gas out on the curtain he had torn down from one of the windows. He stuffed the wet rag into the gas tank and lit it with his lighter. He grabbed Rora and backed into the far corner. He pushed her down into a crouch and knelt over her.
Chapter 8
June 10, 2029
Inside the Night Children Lair
The first tank blew and ignited the second bike’s tank. The resulting explosion blew out the windows and sucked Derek’s breath from his body. The shock wave hammered him and shrapnel and debris peppered him, but he held firm. When he looked up he was surprised to find the gate seemingly untouched. The blast had burned all of the wallpaper around the doorway off revealing concrete walls. The remaining curtains, wallpaper, and the crumbling furniture in the room were in shambles and all on fire. But the gate was intact.
The eerie silence following the blast was broken by a scurrying sound. Derek heard it all around them, but didn’t see anything. It sounded like rats were running around in the walls. Maybe the explosion had startled them. He heard Rora give a little cry when she saw the gate was untouched, but he was too distracted by the scurrying sound to react.
Whatever was making the scurrying sound was way too large to be a rat. Then he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Through a hole punched in the wall by debris he saw something move by about shoulder height. The cannibals were in the walls. There must be a series of passageways running through the interior walls. If the Night Children were using them they probably were not booby trapped and they probably had access to the exit.
Derek tracked the movement and fired both barrels of his shotgun at the point on the wall he anticipated the cannibal to be moving by. The blast punched a hole in what turned out to be a plaster and lathe wall. And he was rewarded by the sight of a dead man wearing dirty clothes slumped against the wall. The body slid out of sight leaving a bloody trail on the wall. Derek grabbed Rora, “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
“But the traps…”
Derek dragged her over to the hole and ignored her gagging sounds when she saw the body. He quickly punched a hole large enough for them to get into the passageway. He did a quick search of the body but only found a dirty knife. He kicked the dead man out of the way and pulled Rora in after him. The passageway ran away from the entrance into the darkness. It was only about two feet wide so they would have to move sideways. There was some light but it was too dark for even Derek’s excellent night vision to see. So he got a road flare out and lit it. The red glow lit the passageway with an eerie flicker and Derek could see that the passageway turned left not too
far ahead.
“Keep quiet and stay behind me.” He told Rora, “We’re going to go through the passageways to the basement and get out. Keep your hand on my back as we go.”
He took her silence as acceptance of the plan. He felt her place her hand on his back. Derek shuffled sideways with the flare in his left hand in front and his Glock in his right hand. They reached the turn and he glanced around it. The passageway went straight for about twenty feet and then had a four way intersection. He couldn’t see too far beyond that into the murky darkness, but there was no sign of the cannibals. No movement and it was deathly silent.
They turned the corner and headed towards the intersection. As they got there Derek heard movement all around them. Rora screamed and he glanced back to see the vague shape of a man behind them. Where the hell did he come from? He must have dropped from the ceiling. The man was advancing quickly towards Rora. Derek pushed her down and fired over her head. The sound of the gunshots was deafening in the enclosed space. The man screamed in pain and fell backwards. Derek was too busy locating the other threats to pay any more attention to him.
Night Children came at him from all directions. He jabbed the lit end of the flare in the face of the cannibal in front of him who was trying to stab him with a carving knife. The man screamed as the flare burned out an eye and fell back. Derek fired twice to his right into the darkness and was rewarded with a loud groan and the sound of a body hitting the floor. A fourth cannibal came from his left and stabbed him in the back, but Derek’s Kevlar vest deflected the blow. It was a good thing these freaks didn’t use guns. He elbowed the man in the face with his left arm breaking the man’s nose.
The cannibal came at him again, the blood streaming down his face not slowing him one bit. Derek fired two shots under his left armpit into the man. He went down with two holes in his chest. Then there was silence. It was only broken by the man with his eye burned out sobbing quietly. Derek could see him clutching his eye in the flickering red light of the flare. He fired one shot into the man’s head silencing him forever. Amazingly Rora didn’t even flinch. He looked at her face and she looked to be in a state of shock. It made sense; thirty six hours ago she was working in the garden outside her idyllic home. Now she was being attacked by cannibals in a dilapidated hotel.