The Day After Never
Covenant
Russell Blake
Copyright © 2016 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact:
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Table of Contents
Books by Russell Blake
About the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Excerpt from The Goddess Legacy
Books by Russell Blake
Co-authored with Clive Cussler
THE EYE OF HEAVEN
THE SOLOMON CURSE
Thrillers
FATAL EXCHANGE
FATAL DECEPTION
THE GERONIMO BREACH
ZERO SUM
THE DELPHI CHRONICLE TRILOGY
THE VOYNICH CYPHER
SILVER JUSTICE
UPON A PALE HORSE
DEADLY CALM
RAMSEY’S GOLD
EMERALD BUDDHA
THE GODDESS LEGACY
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – BLOOD HONOR
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – PURGATORY ROAD
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – COVENANT
The Assassin Series
KING OF SWORDS
NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN
RETURN OF THE ASSASSIN
REVENGE OF THE ASSASSIN
BLOOD OF THE ASSASSIN
REQUIEM FOR THE ASSASSIN
RAGE OF THE ASSASSIN
The JET Series
JET
JET II – BETRAYAL
JET III – VENGEANCE
JET IV – RECKONING
JET V – LEGACY
JET VI – JUSTICE
JET VII – SANCTUARY
JET VIII – SURVIVAL
JET IX – ESCAPE
JET X – INCARCERATION
JET – OPS FILES (prequel)
JET – OPS FILES; TERROR ALERT
The BLACK Series
BLACK
BLACK IS BACK
BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK
BLACK TO REALITY
BLACK IN THE BOX
Non Fiction
AN ANGEL WITH FUR
HOW TO SELL A GAZILLION EBOOKS
(while drunk, high or incarcerated)
About the Author
Featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Chicago Tribune, Russell Blake is The NY Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, including Fatal Exchange, Fatal Deception, The Geronimo Breach, Zero Sum, King of Swords, Night of the Assassin, Revenge of the Assassin, Return of the Assassin, Blood of the Assassin, Requiem for the Assassin, Rage of the Assassin The Delphi Chronicle trilogy, The Voynich Cypher, Silver Justice, JET, JET – Ops Files, JET – Ops Files: Terror Alert, JET II – Betrayal, JET III – Vengeance, JET IV – Reckoning, JET V – Legacy, JET VI – Justice, JET VII – Sanctuary, JET VIII – Survival, JET IX – Escape, JET X – Incarceration, Upon a Pale Horse, BLACK, BLACK is Back, BLACK is The New Black, BLACK to Reality, BLACK in the Box, Deadly Calm, Ramsey’s Gold, Emerald Buddha, The Goddess Legacy, The Day After Never – Blood Honor, The Day After Never – Purgatory Road, and The Day After Never – Covenant.
Non-fiction includes the international bestseller An Angel With Fur (animal biography) and How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated), a parody of all things writing-related.
Blake is co-author of The Eye of Heaven and The Solomon Curse, with legendary author Clive Cussler. Blake’s novel King of Swords has been translated into German, The Voynich Cypher into Bulgarian, and his JET novels into Spanish, German, and Czech.
Blake writes under the moniker R.E. Blake in the NA/YA/Contemporary Romance genres. Novels include Less Than Nothing, More Than Anything, and Best Of Everything.
Having resided in Mexico for a dozen years, Blake enjoys his dogs, fishing, boating, tequila and writing, while battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog:
RussellBlake.com
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Author’s Note
The Day After Never originally started out as a trilogy. I had a story that could be told in three episodes, each roughly 75K words, and my plan was to tie up all loose ends by the end of the final book.
Unfortunately, that’s not how things turned out.
As I wrote the third installment, an idea began to percolate, and by the end of this volume it was clear to me that I’d have to either write a fourth book, or this one would need to be double the word count, making it almost War and Peace length. That didn’t seem viable, so I decided to make the trilogy a four-part series, where I deal with the additional plot items that arose during Covenant’s creation in the final book.
Chapter 1
Duke lay on his stomach near a tiny stream, crossbow in hand and night vision goggles in place. The black nylon straps of the harness enveloped his head like a medieval torture device. Flashes of lightning crackled on the northern horizon, pulsing on the periphery of the night sky like artillery in a distant battle, though the storm was too far off to hear any accompanying thunder.
He’d been in position for a good half hour, waiting patiently for dinner to show itself, secure in the knowledge that it was a matter of time before some unwary animal came in search of water and ended its stay on the planet. He had gotten into the nocturnal hunting routine quickly once he and Aaron had reached his hidey hole in the foothills, and they’d dined on rabbit and venison since they’d arrived.
Duke had abandoned the trading post, hauling everything he could fit on an overloaded cart. He’d rigged several solar panels at his simple two-room cinder-block bunker, which provided sufficie
nt power during the day to recharge the scope and operate the radio as well as a small refrigerator that barely kept their food below room temperature. He missed the conveniences in his old home but realized he’d made the right choice; the danger from the Locos had become too substantial to ignore. There was no question in Duke’s mind that the trading post had already been looted, but he felt nothing when he thought about it – the place had served its purpose, and he could open another one elsewhere once any heat had died down.
He’d put out a warning call on the radio the morning he’d left, on the off chance that the kook in Artesia might be monitoring the airwaves, but when he’d gotten no acknowledgement, he had ridden into the wilds without looking back, Aaron by his side. In the end, the buildings where he’d eked out his existence for the last five years were just some walls and a roof on a godless stretch of nothing, and he held no regrets at leaving it behind. That was how life went in the post-collapse world, and he was grateful for every day that he awoke drawing breath – there were far too many who didn’t each morning.
The hideaway, a former power line maintenance bunker that had long since ceased to matter, was tucked into the remote reaches of the foothills at the end of a dirt track that had washed away over the years and been reclaimed by weeds and prickly pear. But it had water from the stream, was on defendable high ground, and most importantly, was well away from the highway, and so relatively safe from the miscreants who used that strip of asphalt to visit terror on the unsuspecting.
A slight motion in the eerie neon green of his goggles drew Duke’s attention to a clump of brush to his left. A gentle breeze from the north wrinkled the surface of the water, thankfully carrying his scent downriver, away from where he’d detected movement. He inclined his head slightly, careful not to move any more than necessary, and scanned the foliage.
A furry form eased into view, its leporine nose twitching and long ears cocked slightly back as it surveyed the surroundings, some primitive part of its brain warning it of a danger its eyes couldn’t detect. Eventually thirst got the better of it, and Duke inched the crossbow forward – a relatively easy shot at fifteen yards, but not a given. He held his breath as the animal crept in fits and starts toward the water’s edge, and he peered down the iron sights. His finger began gently squeezing the trigger, and then the hare was gone in a blur, startled by an explosion of gunfire from up the slope.
Duke rolled and forced himself to his feet in one seamless maneuver, his heart thudding in his chest as shots shattered the night. The higher pitched rattle of Aaron’s AR-15 was answered by the deeper chatter of AK-47s – at least three or four, Duke guessed.
“Damn,” he muttered as he retraced his steps toward the bunker, crossbow in hand, the landscape glowing neon green in the scope. In the days at the hideaway they’d had no trouble and seen nobody, but they hadn’t relaxed their guard, sticking to shifts and keeping a watch for any sign of encroachment.
Based on the pitched gun battle taking place less than a quarter mile away, that lull in their misfortunes was over.
Duke stuck to a game trail and did his best to move silently along the dirt. The gunfire increased in volume as he neared the shoot-out. At the edge of the clearing beneath the building, he could make out muzzle flashes and counted four gunmen blasting away at Aaron’s position.
He estimated the distance to the closest shooter and frowned – he would have to skirt the brush line to get close enough to be deadly with his Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. The Barnett Ghost 360 crossbow was astoundingly accurate when used with the carbon hunting bolts he favored, but he wasn’t confident it would put a man down with a single bolt, whereas the pistol could place four rounds in an area the size of a soda can at fifty yards on a bad day. He pulled back into the thicket and moved north to where he’d seen the gunmen, and re-emerged almost directly behind the men.
Duke waited to confirm there were only four, and when he was certain of the count, slid the pistol from its holster and drew a bead on the nearest man, now no more than twenty-five yards away. He centered the sights on the man’s back and squeezed the trigger. The pistol bucked three times in quick succession, its deadly bark blending with the nonstop firing from the attacker’s AK. The crouching man fell forward, dropping his weapon, and Duke nodded to himself – one down.
The other three shooters hadn’t noticed their associate’s demise and were still firing away at the bunker with undiminished fury. Duke sidled to his right and aimed at the next attacker, who was lying on his stomach to shoot at Aaron. Duke adjusted the pistol slightly to compensate for the greater distance and put his second group of three shots between the man’s shoulder blades. Two of the rounds shredded through his upper spine at an angle, exiting from the base of the front of his neck before being stopped by the hard dirt beneath him. The gunman flailed like a beached fish and then fell still.
At the bunker, Aaron must have noted the halving of the incoming fire because his AR-15 rattled at the two remaining shooters, the 5.56mm rounds slicing through the grass around them. One of the pair cried out as a well-placed shot took the top of his head off. One gunman remained. Duke held his fire – the angle was less than optimal for a kill shot. The shooter and Aaron exchanged a few volleys, and then, realizing he was the sole member of his group left alive, the attacker rolled onto his side and pushed himself to his feet.
Duke waited until the man was close and emptied the Sig Sauer magazine at him. The 9mm rounds punched into the gunman’s chest but were stopped by the ceramic plate of his flak jacket, momentarily stunning him. He froze, and then a burst of automatic fire from the bunker cut him down from behind. Duke watched as the man’s mouth formed an O and he pitched forward, his AK-47 sailing from his hands as though pulled by an invisible cord.
Silence settled over the clearing, and Duke called out to Aaron, “We got them all. You okay?”
A few seconds later Aaron’s voice answered, “Yeah. You sure that’s everyone?”
“I’ll be there in a second. Don’t shoot.”
Duke made his way toward the bunker, pausing at each of the fallen attackers to toe their weapons well away. When he reached the building, he took in the bullet-pocked mortar around the door and windows and grunted. A grim-faced Aaron stood in the doorway, still holding his rifle.
“What happened?” Duke asked.
“They tripped one of the wires. Came up fast.”
“Any idea who they were?”
“Negative.”
Duke stepped into the room, ejected his spent magazine and slapped a new one in place, and went for his rifle, setting the crossbow by the door. “This is bad news.”
“Gunfire will attract some attention,” Aaron agreed.
“Let’s check on the animals.”
Aaron followed the trader to the area where the horses were corralled further up the hill and was relieved to find them unharmed. On the way back to the bunker, Duke’s mind was processing furiously, his mouth a thin line, his eyes slits beneath a frowning brow.
At the killing field they quickly gathered the men’s weapons. Their hair was long and unkempt, and all were Caucasian, with no facial tattoos or other identifying marks. Three had their eyes frozen open, their limbs already stiffening in death, and Duke’s nose wrinkled at the stench rising from them – a combination of death, dried sweat, and lack of basic hygiene wafting from their tattered clothing.
“They aren’t Locos or Raiders,” Aaron observed.
“Yeah. Probably scavengers. Problem is there may be more of ’em.”
“Could be.”
“Which means it isn’t safe here anymore.” Duke’s frown deepened. “Hate to ride at night, but I don’t see much alternative, do you?”
“We can stay put and load for bear.”
“If there’s twenty of ’em, that’s not such a good idea. Besides, as you said, the shots will draw every Raider and lowlife for miles around.” Duke shook his head. “No, we got to pack up and git. Let’s do it.”
“Where we headed?”
“We’ll camp north of here. There are some decent spots near the river. We’ll figure out what to do next come tomorrow.”
Aaron nodded. “Damn shame. I was just getting used to this toilet.”
Duke threw a final glance at the dead men and then fixed Aaron with a worried stare. “I want to be gone in ten minutes. Pack everything we can carry. Leave the rest. The cart would slow us down too much and make us targets.”
“Gonna miss the power,” Aaron said, looking up at the solar panels arranged on the roof of the building.
“We can add it to our regret list. Now hurry up – time’s a-wasting.”
They made short work of hauling their possessions to the horses. After packing the saddlebags of all four animals, they mounted up, Duke with his night vision goggles in place to guide the way, and set off in the darkness, guns held at the ready.
They rode for three hours and set up their camp on the bank of the Black River near a spit of sand just above a rapid, the water rushing in the narrows before burbling over a scattering of boulders. Once their tents were pitched, Duke tossed Aaron some dried jerky, and they chewed wordlessly. When they’d swallowed their meager supper and washed it down with river water, Duke sat cross-legged in the moonlight, his AR-15 by his side.
“Least it isn’t raining,” he said, studying the horizon where the distant storm was playing itself out.
“So where do we go next?” Aaron asked.
“Beats me. But we can’t go south, and there isn’t much west. That leaves north.”
“Loving’s gone.”
“Yeah, but there’s more than Loving in that direction. We’ll find somewhere we can put down roots and start a new business. Just got to be the right place.”
Duke had a considerable store of gold, ammo, and weapons with which to start a new trading post, so he wasn’t worried about adapting. His profession, like prostitution, was one of the oldest and always in demand. They would move carefully during the day and see what the future held. Maybe they’d find something up by Carlsbad, maybe further north.
The Day After Never - Covenant (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3) Page 1