Sampson's Legacy: The Post-Apocalyptic Sequel To Legacy Of Ashes (Earth's Ashes Book 2)

by Ric Beard

  “They called her the Black Widow.”

  “That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess because I was subjected to old world entertainment and am more particular about what makes good story.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’ve seen. We should talk about it as we ride. I’d like very much to know where you’ve been, Stone. I come to my point.”

  “Um. Ok?”

  “We had nothing to do with the killings of this lawkeeper. The people of Blacksburg are very familiar with us, but Lucinda saw fit to suggest we keep a low profile until things settle down and the culprit is found, or the killings stop and some time passes.”

  “So, you’re avoiding Blacksburg?”

  “No, actually. We just change clothes before we go. Most people don’t know what we look like beneath our hats.”

  “You like to keep people at bay, obviously, so you stay adorned in uniform. Your clothes are obviously tailored for this shroud they create.”

  “You get it. Good!” He pulled up the collars on his trench and gripped the door handle. “After we talk to Lexi, and you’re cleared to go to the compound, I’ll escort you as far as Blacksburg, and then you can take the rest of the trip solo.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “The roads between Blacksburg and Asheville are relatively free of raiders, as far as I know.”

  Relatively free? I don’t like the sound of this. Sean peeked at the rearview. I certainly don’t like hauling all this myself.

  “So, you don’t want to come to the compound and meet our people?”

  “I can’t come to your compound.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Jenna hasn’t invited me.”

  “What are you, a fucking vampire now?”

  “Vampire. Blood suckers, right? They come out only at night?”

  “Yes, those vampires. In our own lore, they couldn’t enter a home without being invited, and yes, they only come out at night.”

  “Sounds like legend the MidEast might use to describe us.”

  “The irony isn’t lost on me. So?”

  “No, I was raised where such a thing would be considered rude.” A lightning flash in the east lit the low peaks of foothills in the distance behind Moss. “The head of a household or leader of a tribe should invite you there before you show up.”

  “Well, that’s very polite of you, but I’m considered one of the leaders, you know.”

  Moss smiled.

  “What?”

  The smile grew wider.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  Moss cleared his throat. “I know that you’re Lexi’s brother and probably the long-lost friend of Lucian and Jenna, but I presume that, after 100 years of separation, you probably have some bones to break before you make compound decisions.”

  “Hey, I…I…shit.”

  “Sorry, I hope I wasn’t a dick just then.”

  Sean chuckled. “No, if anything, you’re right. Lexi talks down to me with regularity, always criticizing.”

  Moss jiggled the door handle. “Sounds to me like she’s teaching you because you need to acclimate to your new home, but that’s just my contribution.”

  “Yeah, your two cents. I get it.”

  “Two cents?” Moss said, staring back into the cab from ground level.

  “Forget it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  MAW?

  33

  The chair cracked under the pressure from the swinging NuBionic arm as the farmer charged Nina with the butcher knife raised high above his head. Though the ropes limited her legs’ mobility, she managed to balance herself and grip the leg of the chair. The crack she’d made above it had weakened the structure enough that the grip of her prosthetic easily snapped the leg away as the ropes fell free of her arm.

  “Knew you was gonna be trouble!”

  Shit, he’s really trying to kill me!

  Charlie brought the knife down as Nina swung the wooden chair leg in an upward arc.

  A hollow thunk! signaled impact as the wooden chair leg caught the bastard beneath his chin. His eyes jostled in their sockets before rolling upward until Nina saw only the whites. The knife clattered to the floor as Charlie folded into a lump and banged the back of his head against the table. An involuntary cringe at the thud of his skull against thick wood caused Nina’s facial muscles to tense.

  Nina raised the chair leg in the air as she wiggled her hips, sending the rest of the rope dangling around her waist and legs, as well as the remnants of the chair clattering to the floor. Her heart pounded in her chest, the room around seeming unstable. Extending the chair leg toward Janie-the-giant as she kicked the remaining rope off her boots, Nina leveled her gaze on those cold gray eyes and tried to command her own voice so she sounded authoritative.

  “Don’t you move.”

  A finger brushed a loose lock of hair over one ear as Janie peered down at her man’s unconscious form huddled on the floor. When her eyes returned to Nina, she stepped back into the corner next to the back door’s hinges and raised her hands in submission. Pale terror washed her face in white.

  “Did you kill him?”

  No cop worth her salt would spare more than a glance down in a situation like that with a threat of Janie’s size looming only feet away. Maintaining her eye lock with Janie, she thrust out the side of her boot and it thumped into Charlie’s ribcage. An audible gush of air escaped him.

  “Doesn’t sound like it, but come out of that corner, and arrangements could be made.”

  Nina’s chest rose high and dropped low as adrenaline coursed through her body. To this simple woman trembling in the corner, she probably looked psychotic, wielding a broken chair leg in a white-knuckled grip, but Janie’s opinion of her was sub-basement-level on her priorities list. Focusing on the teary gray eyes of her adversary, Nina tapped around with her boot until it found the chair and straightened her knee to shove it into the far corner of the kitchen. The remnants clattered together as they slammed into the corner and rattled to the hard floor loudly.

  Now she’d have some space to work with should Janie feel empowered. Waving the chair leg in a tight little circle as she pointed it, Nina nodded toward the floor.

  “Sit right there where you are.”

  Tingles signaled the returning blood flow to her extremities as Nina shook them. Her head swiveled as a voice bellowed from somewhere else in the house and a screen door slammed.

  “Maw? Look at this rock! I was digging in the—”

  Having made it only halfway to the floor, Janie’s eyes ticked toward the living room and then up at Nina.

  Don’t you do it.

  Gray eyes ticked again and the taller woman clenched her meaty fists.

  “Don’t you do it,” Nina voiced her thought aloud while extending the leg of the chair toward Janie.

  Janie launched from her half crouch.

  “Shit!”

  Nina’s shoulders dropped as she stepped aside at the last moment. Spinning her body to gain momentum as she ducked beneath the towering woman’s grasp, she swung the leg around in a wide arc and slammed it into Janie’s back. A growling wheeze spewed from her throat as Janie doubled over, both hands reaching for her spine. After a final, stabilizing step, she thumped to the floor hard on her ass.

  Footsteps pitter-pattered in the distance and a shadow darkened the floor in the next room as a woman appeared in the doorway. Her filthy bare feet squeaked on the wooden planks as she screeched to a halt near the threshold splitting the kitchen and living area. Since Nina had expected an adolescent or preteen girl, the tangled hair hanging loosely across the face of the lanky, ghostly figure in front of her caused her to take a cautious step backward. Only one black eye was visible through the tangles. Nina recalled the name her father had said a few minutes earlier.

  Twyla.

  The figure’s head tilted slightly to the right as the one visible eye locked with N
ina’s and traced her body from top to bottom and up again.

  Where her parents wore the reddish-tan, sun-wrinkled, leathery skin of people who worked outside for all their lives, this girl’s ghostly complexion was a shock against the glare of her mismatched, obsidian eye.

  The expression of wonderment she’d worn as she entered the room morphed into surprise, but when she acquired Nina in her sights, it quickly evaporated into something else. The glassy eye peered from beneath a half-closed, purplish eyelid. A rusted gardening trowel clanked to the floor, causing Nina to jolt. The hand freed by the dropped implement slowly rose to her face and pushed the hair away, wrapping it around her ear in a motion reminiscent of Janie’s a moment before.

  Twyla scowled and reached behind her back. The silvery blades of a pair of secateurs appeared, clutched in a pale-handed grip, as the blades overlapped and released.

  Click, click, click.

  “The fuck are you?” the girl asked. The low, growling timbre of her voice added to the surprise of her stature. It came in the even drone of a machine, emotionless.

  Click, click, click.

  Nina tightened her fingers around the chair leg into a white-knuckled grip of her own.

  She waved her makeshift weapon toward the door. “All I want to do is walk through that door and leave you in peace.”

  But the gaze locking her eyes didn’t instill any confidence that Nina was going anywhere without more conflict.

  Click…click.

  Twyla paced along the straight line dividing the two rooms, her eyes pinned to Nina’s all the while. She slapped the tool against the other palm repeatedly as she spoke.

  “What I asked, woman, was who the fuck are you.” Her glare bore into Nina as her lips raised into a sneer, wrinkling the bottom of her nose. “Answer! Now!”

  Nina flinched.

  Click.

  They’re all psycho. I’ve fallen prey to a house of farmer psychopaths. If Sampson’s enforcers come here and raid these people’s stores, how has this…thing survived? Why hadn’t they put a bullet in her?

  Nina allowed her eyes to twitch down from the murderous glare of the girl’s eyes. That was when she noticed the baby bump.

  Who’s the father?

  Janie’s words trailed through her mind.

  Like what you done with Twyla wasn’t bad enough!

  Nina felt a wave of revulsion as she glanced down at the huddled mass of the man lying on the floor.

  Psycho Girl bent at the knees, lowered herself as if the hinges on the backs of her knees needed oiling, and finally snatched up the spade with her free hand, pointing it at the floor next to Nina.

  “That’s my maw.” The spade ticked to the right. “That’s my paw.” The girl absently rubbed her belly with the side of the fist gripping the spade as she introduced her father, causing Nina to cringe. Acid crept into her throat. She swallowed hard.

  Twyla’s hand flinched again, the secateurs picked up the pace.

  Click, click, clickety-click, click, click.

  “Come for trouble, dintcha!”

  You were a cop! Get a grip!

  Nina shook her head, but no words came. She was impressed she’d managed to suppress a flinch.

  Nina shook her head, but no words came.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, woman.” Her lips spread apart, revealing a mouth full of cavity infused, deep yellow teeth so large Nina thought of a smiling horse. Twyla raised the spade so the tip nearly touched her left eye. “I’mma dig your eyeballs right out of their sockets.” She scooped the trowel in front of her eye and flicked in Nina’s direction.

  It’s gotta be a dream. A nightmare, right? I’m still lying in the badlands, sleeping under an oak, dreaming about a psychotic family on a farm.

  Click.

  Twyla’s foot crossed the threshold toe first, as if she was testing the temperature of a pool. She slid her mud-covered bare feet across the tile, swinging wide of her target, as if to circle around as Twyla’s psychotic glare danced up and down Nina’s body.

  “You’re purty. I’m gonna put your eyes in my box.”

  The room grew darker, and though Nina attributed the change to a cloud passing in front of the sun outside, she acknowledged it could be the last semblance of her sanity burning out.

  Click, click.

  Nina gazed into her eyes. A lifetime of entitlement stared back at her. The loose, meandering slither of her feet across the floor as she circled Nina communicated confidence. Each hand gripped its implement steadily, one side of her mouth turned up in amusement.

  She wants to fight. Get control.

  Nina found her words.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Twyla.” The weighty chair leg was a bit fatter than the baton she’d carried as a Security Services officer in the city, but she could work with it. Nina spun the chair leg over the back of her hand like a baton and then reversed direction and flipped it back over and into her palm.

  Twyla’s feet halted on the tiles, and her head ticked to the side like a curious animal’s. The secateurs stilled. Those dark eyes were dancing now, clipping from one of Nina’s to the other, back and forth.

  She’s like a goddamn animal.

  Twyla stepped to the left, drawing closer to the table. The secateurs came back to life.

  Click, click, click.

  Nina stepped to her left, matching Twyla’s circle, keeping the girl in front of her. She flipped the chair leg again.

  Don’t let her see you shake. Animals detect fear.

  Nina slipped the wood over to the prosthetic, causing a hollow clap.

  Twyla stopped again, even more like a curious animal than before. Then the smile crept up both sides of her mouth. Nina’s instincts told her the girl was ready to pounce at any second. Her eyes shifted to the chair leg as an idea occurred to her. A crack cut through the top from where her prosthetic detached it from the chair.

  The sun peeked out from the clouds and Twyla was bathed in its rays as they pushed through the kitchen window.

  Nina flipped the wood and grasped it from the other side. Then she held it out toward the girl.

  “You want it?” She squeezed her shoulder muscles with all the tension she could muster, imagining the rushing nerve pulses streaming down the prosthetic like flowing water as the wood began to crack and crumble in her hand.

  Twyla’s eyes widened and she took a step back. She blinked as the mid-day sun bathed her already-pale skin. Nina’s brain twitched.

  Itch.

  The tool clicked open and closed in Twyla’s hand several times as Nina watched her work through the situation in her head. Nina stared at the powdery skin of her cheeks.

  Itch.

  Click, click, click.

  Soreness in Nina’s jaw caused her to double clutch the chair leg with her prosthetic as she forced the rest of her muscles to relax.

  Itch.

  If Twyla spent time outside digging, if she lived on a farm, why was she so pale?

  Click, click, click, click, click.

  Itch.

  Those exterior basement doors. They aren’t keeping the food there, they’re keeping their daughter there. The little psycho lives underground, so if anyone comes along, they don’t find her. If the enforcers come to get food, they hide her so she doesn’t get shot. To hell with this psycho circus. I’ve about had it with people controlling my destiny.

  Lexi Shaw’s first rule of self-defense was to let the assailant come to you. Use their own motion against them. Be it a fist to the throat, a kick to the groin, or a flip over the hip, using someone else’s motion to cause the most impact possible was just good fighting.

  Let her come to you. Make her come to you.

  “Do Maw and Paw lock you in the basement when the bad men come?” Nina asked. “Do they give your food away? Is that why you cut daddy’s ear off?”

  Twyla’s mouth gaped as her eyes flared into a fiery glare.

  A smile crept across Nina’s lips, and she threw dropped re
mnants of the leg. Twyla jerked as the stump clattered, and splinters showered the floor. Raised in the air at face level, the empty-handed prosthetic made a similar click, click, click as she mimicked the girls hand motions.

  “Well, Twyla,” she clicked her prosthetic fingers a few more times, “I’m not Maw. I’m not Paw. You come near me, and I’m gonna bury you and your incest baby in that basement.”

  Their feet crossed the opposite sides of the floor, moving in opposite directions, circling, arms flared out to their sides in anticipation of action. Nina eyed the door as she drew closer.

  “…kill you,” Twyla muttered.

  “You killed people before, Twyla? Maybe animals?”

  A few more steps.

  “Gonna make you dead, bitch…”

  “I’m not scared of you, little girl.”

  A little further.

  “I’m not little!”

  In the worst timing Nina could’ve asked for, Janie pushed herself up onto one hand, the other reserved for pressing her back. Her voice rattled by the pain, she adopted a soothing tone as she spoke to her daughter.

  “Twyla, honey. Just let her go, now. Just let her go. You don’t wanna hurt your baby.”

  Though Twyla stopped pacing, she didn’t spare her mother so much as a glance. She pointed the spade at Nina. “Shut up, Maw! Ain’t gonna hurt my baby. I’m gonna hurt her!”

  Just a little further.

  “Twyla, just let her go now.”

  “No! Shut up Maw!” Twyla raised the spade as if to backhand Janie with it, and Janie raised one arm to shield herself from the blow. The fear in the woman’s eyes sickened Nina.

  How long has this girl terrorized them? How long does someone out here in the middle of nowhere tolerate a mentally ill psychopath under their roof?

  “Does Paw come and visit you in the basement sometimes?” Nina asked, distracting the psycho.

  “So?” Twyla said.

  Nina’s disgust surprised her as it washed through her mind and caused her body to shudder. Crazy daughter. Rapist father. Captivity.

  Nina changed tact.

  “So, Janie. Did locking her in the basement make her crazy? Or did you do it because she was already crazy? Is Charlie the Daddy of his own grandchild?”