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

by Ric Beard

  “You can’t tell me why?”

  Ruby shrugged. “Because I arrested Jones, proved to you I could do what needed to be done.”

  Sampson leaned in and kissed Ruby on the cheek before walking toward the back of the house. He stopped at the corner leading into the kitchen.

  “It amazes me how you underestimate yourself, Ruby. What you did to Jones was the least of why I’ve made you my second. Bradshaw is a hard man; his absence in the south was what caused Churchill to happen. It was my biggest failure. Bringing you into the fold and having your council during these crucial times? Well,” he scratched the short hairs on his cheek, “that’s my greatest gift.” He leveled his eyes on hers. “We’re going to change the world together, Ruby Monroe.”

  He disappeared behind the corner. Ruby watched dust plume into the air through the window as Carson and his men pulled away from the house and realized her jaw was gaping open. She clicked her back teeth together and realized a tear was rolling down her cheek.

  We’re going to change the world together…

  Chapter Forty-Four

  SHOULD'VE STAYED IN THE CITY

  44

  The light through the window was bright and yellow as it sent the shadows of the frame across the far wall. As her eyes blinked open, Nina saw a girl with blonde hair flowing out behind her as she ran through a grassy field. Faded liquid stains streaked across the painting, and one dim purple spot covered the girl’s left eye. An oil lamp rested atop a small bedside table constructed of worn two-by-fours with a knot on one board’s corner.

  “Are you awake?” a voice asked.

  Nina’s eyes shot to the corner of the room to spy a blurry figure with long gray hair rocking in a chair, staring back at her. Blinking away the dry sensation in her crusty eyes, she focused. The woman wore a long, plain, light blue dress with no adornments. The slow rocking of the chair brought her face into focus. When Nina tried to sit up, her side screamed. She groaned.

  “I guess that means you’re awake.”

  “I am. Where am I?”

  “You’re in a town called The Nethers.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “I s’pose that depends on where you want to be. Where were you headed?”

  “South.”

  “The direction? Or is that the name of a place? It’s no place I heard of, and I heard lots of ‘em. But I’ve also never seen clothes like that, and you could be from the moon for all I know.”

  The pain subsided, and Nina lay flat on her back, drawing deep breaths. Some kind of bug she didn’t recognize was crawling across the ceiling between thin rafters.

  “Take your time, sweetie, I can see you’re in pain.”

  “I was moving South. I’m looking for friends of mine.”

  “Are your friends from Triangle City, as well?”

  Nina’s head swiveled on the pillow.

  Right, I could be from the moon for all she knows.

  “How do you know I’m from Triangle City?”

  “When I took off your furs, I found that suit you’re wearing underneath. Those aren’t MidEast clothes. And those glasses—,” she stabbed a crooked finger at the bedside table, “—sure aren’t. I guessed. Looks like I guessed it right, too!”

  Nina reached up for the glasses and slid them on her face, thankful her body allowed the motion without further torture.

  Light flooded into the center of the room as the worn door swung open, flooding light into the room. A man wearing suspenders with a silky white beard creeping down to his chest resembling raw cotton. Nina’s eyes diverted to the cracked window by the bedside table and surmised that, if she needed to bolt, she could easily fit.

  “Well? She awake?”

  “Yep.” The older lady motioned at Nina, who’d managed to wiggle her way up the wall at the head of the bed and lean against it.

  “Hello, young lady. I see you’ve met Mathilda. I’m Jake Foster.”

  “I’m Nina Schafer.” She spread her fingers in greeting.

  “What in the world are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere, sleeping on the rocks atop our hill?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I got nowhere to be,” Jake said.

  “Let the girl wake up, Jake, she ain’t been up three minutes!” The woman flung gray hair over her shoulder, pushed up from the rocker with both arms, and set her hands against Jake’s chest. “Go on! Get!”

  “I’ll come check on you later,” Jake said as he was gently forced back through the door, disappearing into a new flood of daylight.

  “She don’t need none of your checkin’. Get!”

  Mathilda stepped back inside the threshold and slammed the door. The slithering sounds of Matilda’s feet drew Nina’s eyes to the floor, where she spied moccasin slippers. Her hand felt cool as the old lady laid it against her forehead.

  “You’ve cooled off. That’s good.”

  “Was I feverish?”

  “I thought you were going to fry your brain right inside your head bones. You were sweating like a plant after a frost. You were about as green, too. Any idea what’s wrong with ya? Hm? Sickness? You got the lungs?”

  In her medical work with Jenna up north, she’d witnessed mill workers with the ailment: their hacking coughs, persistent fevers.

  “Nothing like that. I promise.”

  “Well, you keep your promise then.” Mathilda patted her hand. Producing Nina’s pulse rifle from the corner, she held it out. “What can you tell me about this contraption?”

  “It’s a pulse rifle.”

  “I gathered that. I’ve seen my share of rifles, but I’ve never seen one like this. Very…what’s the word…sleek.”

  “A friend of mine designed it. Lots of nonlethal stopping force.”

  “Nonlethal? You mean it don’t kill people?”

  “Well, it’s capable of that, but we almost never use the red setting.”

  The old woman eyed the stock of the weapon.

  “I see, red is dead and blue don’t kill?”

  “That’s right.”

  The woman leaned the rifle against the side table. “Are you a soldier, Nina?”

  If Nina had ever heard a loaded question in her life, it was that one. If Redneck Charlie and his now-deceased wife were ready to trade her to Sampson to protect their food and their psycho daughter, what might these people do with a soldier who opposed their oppressors?

  “No.”

  “Then what are you doing with that weapon?”

  Sitting beneath the woman’s gaze as golden light through the window accentuated her shining face, Nina realized the gray hair was premature. Mathilda might only be in her late thirties—maybe early forties.

  “You here about the enforcer raiding parties?”

  How she wished Jenna was here right now. Jenna would know what to say.

  “I’m from the city. I haven’t been out here long. Just a couple of months. I was with my team. We go from farm to farm and see how we can help. We’re crop specialists. We have technology that helps us increase yields.”

  That was damn good.

  “Then you carry weapons in case you come across raiding parties.”

  Shit.

  “That’s right. We have to protect ourselves.”

  “Especially against those scum buckets.”

  Nina breathed a sigh of relief and Mathilda went on.

  “A new leader pops up every time the old one gets his head cut off. They come and take our sons and attack that damn city. Don’t know what they think they’ll get out of it. But I confess I’m not the most knowledgeable sort about how y’all live, either.”

  Nina smiled. “I thought conscription was over? That there was no army?”

  “What would you—” she extended an index finger, “—call trucks filled with armed men, gallivanting around all of creation with guns? Christmas fairies?”

  “No, I suppose not. I just hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Hm! Guess you c
ity people don’t know every darn thing either, then.” One side of her mouth raised in a crooked grin. Then she shrugged and paced over to the window and weaved her fingers behind her back. “We’ve thought about gathering up our horses and heading east, to the hills.”

  “I live in those mountains now.”

  Matilda’s turned slowly and Nina read something in new wrinkles crossing her face. She’d surprised, and maybe disgusted, the woman with the revelation.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said I lived in—

  “Not that, you silly thing!” She perked her ear toward the window again, stepping closer with her head leaned toward it as if she had a crick in her neck.

  Rumbling. Growing louder.

  “Oh, that’s not good. That’s not good ’t all.” The same crooked finger wavered toward her. “You stay right there. Don’t you come outside. Hear?”

  Nina held up a hand. “I hear.”

  A metal-on-metal squeal burst into the air from outside as the front end of a troop carrier halted amidst a cloud of white dust.

  Light flooded the room as Mathilda fled into the daylight, and the door slammed behind her, bumping the doorframe twice for good measure. Nina threw off the heavy fur blanket and slid slowly out of bed, testing her muscles to ensure they didn’t send her sprawling to the floor. Creeping over to the front window, she lowered herself to her knees and peeked through the pane.

  Oh, not good at all.

  A truckload of men in heavy fur clothing and matching hats jumped down from the truck bed and fanned out with rifles at the ready.

  Jake stood out there with a hand raised in greeting. The driver shimmied down, out of the cab, and walked over. A long beard hid most of his face, and thick shoulders were apparent through his coat. Nina watched as Jake greeted the man and pointed back up the road. Jake shook his head, and the driver set his hands on his hips in response. Nina could see his jaw rumbling as he chattered at Jake. Jake just shrugged.

  They found my cart.

  The man with the long beard stuck out a finger and called to his men over his shoulder. The finger bounced in the air as it bounced to indicate all the structures in the town, ending on the one in which Nina knelt. Heart pounding in her chest, Nina scanned the room for cover. The bed sat too high off the floor for her to hide there and the rest of the room was just a plain square with no nooks in which to conceal herself. Spying the rifle, she duck-walked over to the side table and grabbed it, checking the power meter.

  At least it’s fully charged, if nothing else can go right.

  Heart racing, she scrambled to the window, shoved the lamp to the side, and tried to raise the sill. She struggled under the effort and her side exploded in pain. Boots thundered on the planks outside and Nina knew she wouldn’t have time to crawl through without leaving the window open in the middle of winter, which would draw suspicion. Spinning and setting her back to the wall, her eyes flicked to all corners of the room.

  Window across from me. Another one on the right. Far corner…no direct light, more cover behind the rocking chair.

  She maintained her crouch as she waddled past the closed door and slid behind the rocking chair. Pulling her rifle tight to her chest, she set the switch to blue. Muffled commands penetrated the windows and the cracks in the rickety door as footfalls landed on wood outside. Raising the rifle so she could peer through the scope, Nina set her eyes on the sliver of sunlight beneath the door and forced deep breaths into her lungs. A pain slithered through her right side, up into her armpit like an angry serpent, but it was nothing compared to the electric jolts that had brought her to her knees the night before.

  Why are you looking through the scope? Wake up!

  Shadows danced beneath the doorway and stopped in the center of the sliver of light cast from outside. The light spread across one side of the floor as the door creaked open, and a man wearing heavy furs stepped into the room with a carbine at waist level pointed down the center of the room. The whites of his eyes skipped to all corners of the room. They landed on her corner, and he leaned to look around the chair.

  Wait for the door to close.

  A smile crept across his face. He took a breath and parted his lips to call out just as the door punched the jamb. A blue flash erupted from the muzzle of her rifle and ignited inside the man’s mouth. Nina watched as the light echoed in the back of his throat and radiated in a glow down his neck before he crumpled to the floor.

  Temples pounding, she kicked the rocker out of the way and moved to the center of the room. Slapping two fingers on his neck, Nina held her breath.

  Shit. You killed him. You aren’t supposed to shoot him in the mouth, ‘Nina Crack Shot!”

  She skirted the window and peered out from below the sill. The men gathered at the truck again, with a couple stragglers still stepping out of the other rickety structures and into the light of day. One barrel-chested man with bulging eyes and a wide scar that bent half his mouth downward, as if it was melting toward his jaw, shook his head. The driver gave Jake a final shove as he mounted up and cranked the engine. Nina heard the wheeze of the electric supplemental drive as the man ground it into gear. The rest of the enforcers glared menacingly at the townsfolk lining the wide dirt road as they passed, and the truck exited town in the opposite direction from which it had come.

  Jake’s boots kicked up dust as he trudged across the road toward her. Nina swung around and dropped her gaze to the corpse sitting on the floor.

  It won’t bode well for these people when they realize he’s missing. Move!

  The door flung open, and Jake appeared in the doorway, his face shadowed by the sunlight behind him.

  “Help me get him up!” Nina barked. She grabbed at the dead man’s arm and yanked it upward. Then she bent at the waist, waiting for Jake to help her haul him over her shoulder. But no help came.

  A hand slapped to Jake’s chest as he absorbed the scene and stepped backward so the door hit his shoulder on the return swing.

  “Sweet glory! We are in so much…” he trailed off.

  “Oh no,” another voice said. Nina dropped the limp arm and raised her chin to find Mathilda covering her mouth with one hand. “This is bad, Jake. This is so bad.”

  Nina projected a low tone of voice. “You need to come help me get him on my shoulders so we can get him out of here before they come back. Yes, you might be in trouble anyway, but if they find his body, you’re certain to be.”

  “They’re going to take a girl for this,” Mathilda said.

  A girl? A long, lingering sigh escaped her lungs. I hate this fucking place, so much.

  Nina grabbed both of the dead man’s arms and started dragging him toward the door before she felt a hand on her back.

  “Leave him,” Jake said. More heavy footfalls rattled loose boards outside the door. “Ronnie! David! C’mon over here!” Nina dropped the dead man’s arms, swung toward the door, and watched Jake wave someone in his direction. Two young men appeared and Jake directed them.

  “Pick that man up and take him up to the hill. Drop him out of site in the rocks somewhere, and hustle your butts back down here. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the men said. Nina cleared out of their way.

  Mathilda pointed at Nina. “You. Come with me.”

  She grabbed a large leather satchel out of the corner and hung it over her shoulder.

  Nina pulled on her boots and followed Mathilda as they exited onto the front stoop, turned, and wrapped around the back of the house. The grassy fields stood in contrast to the view she’d had out the window. On one side, a desert, on the other, lush green. Matilda’s pace was stubborn, and Nina rushed to keep up.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t imagine there’s much you could’a done about it. Asshole probably would’a shot ya, if not worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “We pay ‘em off to keep ‘em off the girls. We try to hide them when they come through town, but we don’t always he
ar ‘em in time. They saw something like you, well, suffice it to say they’d pollute one of our beds with it. I don’t think Jake should’ve picked you up off those rocks to begin with, but I guess he’s soft, the old fool. It ain’t nothin’ personal, mind ya, it’s just that we gotta look out for our own. But that don’t mean I’m gonna set you off in a bad way because he was stupid. Ain’t your fault.”

  The crevice of the ridge revealed a sprawling valley of grass and a variety of trees surrounding wood fencing that stretched over a hill. Inside the fences, horses clopped around.

  “You ever ride before?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Shoot. Well, guess we’ll get you a cart and let one pull ya. Better ’n letting one kick you off and leave you worse than you were. You gonna be able to make it somewhere with whatever ails you?”

  “Yes, I’m going to be fine.”

  “I hope so, or else it wouldn’t be worth it.”

  They spent the rest of the tromp across the valley in silence as Mathilda kept her pace just ahead of Nina’s. She looked past the woman and her chin dropped. The valley was filled with the beasts, all encircled by a fence that seemed to stretch on forever.

  The bag bounced off the woman’s hip as they trudged. They reached a small building outside the fencing and Mathilda pulled open the wide, neck-height double doors. Behind a gate inside, she retrieved a beautiful blonde horse with thick hooves. Nina stood back in paralysis.

  It’s a monster.

  “Oh, woman, it ain’t gonna bite ya. Here.” She held out an apple. Nina stared at it for a few beats, took, it, and rubbed it furiously on her chest. “It’s not for you, it’s for the horse.”

  Feeling warmth paint her face, Nina extended the apple out the full length of her arm. Her muscles jerked as the horse pulled the apple between its lips and crunched away. She rubbed her hand on her combat suits pants.

  “That’s all the trust you have time to build today. I’ll put some more apples in the cart. Your clothes are in the bag along with the satchel you had around your waist…and your pistol.”

  With some effort, Mathilda raised the shaft tip of the cart and pushed it away from a rock underneath the wide, wooden wheels with tall spokes. To Nina’s surprise the horse didn’t flinch when she tied on the belly and back bands.