Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series)

by Peter R Stone

  “She was trying to rescue her sister so they could join the escape tonight,” Deacon replied.

  I just glared at them.

  “Good thing we found out about that, could have lost a source of income,” the man said.

  “We really want a girl masquerading as a guy to repay her father’s debt, Boomer? We need to find the brother quick smart and put him to work,” Deacon said. Suddenly alarmed, he looked back at me. “Unless he’s planning on escaping too.”

  “As I told you, I haven’t seen him. You think I’d be impersonating him if he was around?” I said.

  The door at the other end of the room opened and three men entered. Two were in the late twenties, one so full of himself that he walked like he was God’s gift to women. It was the third man, though, that caught my attention. He was tall, with a muscular, solid build, greying hair, with an atmosphere of authority that preceded him. Those already in the room nodded in respect.

  The man took in the scene with eyes that missed nothing. He indicated me with a flick of his head. “Who’s he?”

  “Not he, she. This is Chelsea, the older Thomas girl, Boss.” Deacon proceeded to explain the situation. How I’d been masquerading as my brother.

  The boss looked me up and down like a butcher examining a piece of meat. “She would have done just fine. Shame about her father getting thrown in prison.”

  “Would have done just fine for what?” I snapped, worn down by the throbbing pain in the side of my head, legs, and hips. Uneasiness took hold of my stomach.

  “You will not speak unless spoken too!” the boss growled.

  I turned to Deacon. “What’s he talking about?”

  It was the boss who answered. “Didn’t your father tell you, girl? We made him an offer the day before he was arrested. To get his gambling debt written off all he had to do was sign two marriage contracts. My nephews here wanted to get married, but with our family’s reputation and all, that has proved difficult. Your father’s situation was the perfect solution – two girls from a reputable family, able to further my nephews’ social standing, available for marriage. One now, the other when she turned eighteen.”

  I looked at him, and then at Deacon, and the uneasiness in my gut twisted into full-blown nausea as I connected the dots. It was with a terrible sense of finality that I realised I had been completely wrong about my father.

  I remembered when he came home the day before he was arrested, scared out of his wits. Deacon and Wells must have bailed him up after work that night, pressuring him to give away Karen and myself in marriage to the syndicate boss’ nephews. I glanced at the two younger men who came in with the boss. The arrogant one was running his eyes up and down my body with such undisguised lust that it made my skin crawl. The other was doing the same to my sister.

  I realised then that my father didn’t put himself into prison to avoid another beating, he did it so they couldn’t make him sign those marriage contracts. A crippling sense of guilt descended upon me like a crushing weight. Having mistaken my father’s actions, I rejected him, refused to visit him in prison until the last day, and even then, I blamed him for all of our woes. True, his gambling habits created the whole mess, but at the end, when it came down to it, he sacrificed his freedom to save us.

  “Worked it out, have you?” Deacon asked. He was wearing his empty, patronising smile.

  “He wouldn’t sign the contracts, so you beat him up. And because he knew you wouldn’t leave him be until he signed them, he put himself in prison so that he was beyond your reach,” I said.

  “Spot on, Chelsea–” Deacon said. But before he could say another word, the lights went out, plunging the entire building into pitch darkness.

  “What now?” the boss asked.

  “Blown a fuse?” the white-haired man suggested.

  “I’ll get a torch,” Wells said. I heard him feel his way in the dark past Karen, heading for a cupboard behind her.

  Suddenly, the strains of a strong, male voice singing rapid staccato notes at an ultrasonic pitch floated into the room.

  It was Brandon!

  I spun towards the corridor, matching his ultrasonic song with my own, creating a haunting harmony. The darkness instantly fled away and I could see perfectly. My brother was sprinting up the corridor towards us, a fire raging in his eyes.

  Darting in to the staffroom, he acknowledged me with a nod and pulled a long, serrated blade from his belt. I moved back quickly so I wouldn’t be in his way. He darted past Deacon, slashing his blade across his throat in one flowing movement as he did so. Holding on to his neck with both hands, the debt collector went down, blood bubbling from his lips and escaping between his fingers. He would be dead in seconds.

  Brandon went for the older man next, who was still holding a handkerchief to his split lip, eyes darting around in the dark, trying to work out what was going on. With barely a hitch in his stride, my brother buried the blade to the hilt in his stomach. The man collapsed with a strangled cry and laid still, his blood staining the carpet.

  Terrified, and having no idea what was happening, Karen began to rise from her chair.

  “Don’t move, Karen!” I shouted.

  “Where’s the blasted light!” the boss bellowed.

  “Got it!” Wells shouted as he pulled a torch from the cupboard. He thumbed it on and swung it around the room.

  As soon as the beam illuminated Brandon, the young men with the boss attacked, one pulling out a knife, the other an expandable police baton. My brother ducked beneath the torch light by diving to the floor. He scooted to the left and as he came up again, he stabbed the first hoodlum in the side and as he stepped past him, the back as well. As the thug went down, he slashed the second man’s throat, putting him out of the fight too.

  “Keep the beam on him!” the boss shouted as he backed away from the sounds of frantic combat until he collided with the far wall.

  Locating Brandon with the torch again, Wells drew the spring-loaded gun he used to shoot me, and aimed it at him.

  I scooped an empty beer bottle from the sofa and flung it at the gangster, striking his hand. The shot went wide, the dangerous metal spike flying past Brandon’s shoulder to stick in the wall behind him.

  Growling in frustration, Wells discarded the empty gun and took two giant steps, reaching my brother.

  Brandon tried to stick him with the knife, but the massive thug dropped the torch and caught his hand. A game of push and shove ensued in the flickering torchlight that illuminated their shoes, but my brother was no match for Wells.

  Still using echolocation, I watched, petrified, as Wells took hold of Brandon’s knife hand and slowly twisted the weapon back towards his chest, a grin of evil anticipation on his ugly, scared face.

  I jumped forward and took hold of Well’s hand. Together, Brandon and I managed to stop the blade twisting towards his chest. That was all we could manage, though, the big brute was too strong!

  I suddenly remembered how Ryan beat the monster.

  “He’s got a glass jaw!” I shouted.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Brandon slugged Wells in the jaw with his free hand, and then again with even more power, snapping his head back and rattling his teeth. The thug staggered back in a daze. His grip on Brandon’s knife hand weakened, and in a heartbeat, my brother twisted his hand free and plunged the knife into his chest.

  The six-foot-six monster crashed to the floor, clipping Karen’s chair on the way down. My sister screamed in fear and curled into a ball on the chair, hiding her head in her arms.

  “No one touches my sisters!” Brandon snarled at Wells, who stared at him open mouthed as the light faded from his eyes.

  I was about to congratulate Brandon for ending Wells’ reign of terror, when he was suddenly fully illuminated in torchlight, followed immediately by a deafeningly loud double-clap of thunder. He immediately collapsed and writhed around on the floor, blood soaking his shirt and hoodie from two gaping holes in his stomach.

&nb
sp; “No!” I screamed.

  The Boss stood there near the wall, holding Wells’ torch in one hand and a smoking gun in the other. A sadistic smile creased his lips. “Hurts, doesn’t it, you stupid git. Death will be slow in coming, too. Just who did you think you were dealing with? Huh?”

  Watching the syndicate boss gloating over Brandon caused something in me to snap. In one smooth motion, I snatched the old man’s knife from the floor and slashed the back of the boss’ right wrist, severing muscles and tendons. The gun hit the floor with a thud.

  “Forgot about me, didn’t you?” I said.

  Undeterred by the injury and livid with rage, the boss swung the torch at my head with all his strength. I ducked under the wild swing, came up inside his arms, and buried the knife in his chest to the hilt. He took one step, tripped, and went down, his body wracked with involuntary spasms as he died. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I realised I had just killed someone, but I didn’t have time to think about it then.

  I darted across the room and flung myself beside my brother. Tearing the jacket off Deacon’s corpse, I tried to staunch the blood flow from Brandon’s stomach. At the same time, I used flash sonar to examine the wound, immediately regretting it. His intestines had been pulped.

  Brandon placed one bloody hand on my cheek and grabbed my right hand with the other, crushing it in an iron grip.

  “Don’t waste your time, Chelz, I’m not going to make it,” he said between gasps of pain.

  Realising the fight was over, Karen crawled off her chair and joined us, able to see just enough in the weak torchlight to realise Brandon had been shot.

  “Elder Brother?” she asked, tears flowing.

  He grabbed one of her hands. “Promise me you’ll look after Chelz, okay?”

  “No, Brother! You can’t leave us, you can’t!”

  Brandon placed a bloody finger on her lips, and pulled me closer with his other hand. His voice came out in a rasp. “Chelz, you have to finish what I was trying to do tonight. Stop Con, Matt, and Jack from escaping. I already put a signed confession in the mailbox outside the magistrate’s office this evening. As long as they’re still in the town tomorrow, those guys are going down.”

  “How am I supposed to stop the three of them?” I asked frantically.

  “My backpack’s outside. Inside it you’ll find what you need to knock them out. Do it during the mad rush to get out the gates and no one will notice.” His whole body shuddered and he arched his neck, crying out in pain.

  “Brandy!” I cried out. Tears poured down my cheeks and mingled with the blood seeping through Deacon’s jacket.

  His grip on my hand intensified. “Promise me, Chelz!”

  “I promise – I’ll stop them!”

  “Thank you.” He sagged against the floor, strength gone. “I love you, Sis – you too, Karen. Sorry I let you down.”

  He took one more, laboured breath, and then he was gone. An empty shell lying in a pool of blood. A deep, agonisingly painful sob tore from the depths of my being, and I half-collapsed over the top of him. His blood soaked into my clothes. His clothes.

  “Elder Sister – is he?” Karen asked, her voice quivering.

  I barely registered she had spoken, for the loss I felt was beyond anything I would have thought possible. My twin brother, my other half, the one who’d shared my world even before birth, was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Elder Sister?” Karen said between sobs.

  Remembering the promise I made Brandon and how little time I had left in which to carry it through, I clawed my way back to the world of the living. “He’s gone, Karen. Now come, we have to go.” I stood, grimacing from the pain in my leg, and pulled her to her feet. Spotting my cap on the floor, I scooped it up and put it on.

  “Go? Go where – we can’t leave him here?”

  “We have to get to the breakout right away or we’re gonna miss out,” I said. Using echolocation, I watched her shake her head emphatically. “It’s what he wanted, Karen!”

  She still wouldn’t move, and having no time for pleasantries, I pulled her roughly after me. When we got outside, I noticed that the thug I rendered unconscious had a knife wound in his chest. Courtesy of Brandon, no doubt.

  Spotting my brother’s bag beside the backdoor, a quick ultrasonic scan revealed the items he had planned to use to stop the murderers. I unzipped the bag and took out three capped syringes he must have stolen from the hospital. According to their labels, they were filled with anaesthetic – presumably enough to knock out a grown man. I would just have to trust that Brandon knew what he was doing.

  I put the syringes in my pocket and pulled Karen close. “Stay with me and do exactly what I do. If we bump into a Custodian patrol the only place we will be going is jail.”

  Although suffering from shock, Karen somehow managed to nod and we were off, first retrieving our backpacks, and then sticking to the shadows and avoiding the street lamps as much as possible. I had my senses on full alert and concentrated on listening for any sign of Custodians, using this activity as a distraction to keep from dwelling on Brandon’s tragic demise. I need not have worried though, for we encountered none. The distraction was obviously doing its job in pulling all the Custodians over to the other side of town.

  The eastern gatehouse wasn’t far from the snooker club, so we reached the rendezvous point fifteen minutes later. Picking our way carefully through hedges, flower gardens and small vegetable patches, we came across a small crowd of foragers and their families – several dozen of them – that had gathered secretly behind the ten-storey apartment block closest to the gates.

  Con, Matt and Jack stood near the corner with several other foragers. A freckled teenage girl stood in their midst. They were putting bright red tomato sauce on her face, arms, and clothes to make it look like she had been attacked. So she was the one who would approach the guards to distract them. It occurred to me that I fitted the part, since I was already covered with blood and was one big walking wound.

  I looked out for Sofia, hoping against hope that Brandon had been able to get her here before he doubled back to help me. For one terrifying moment, I thought she wasn’t here, but then spotted her at the back, looking into the night, waiting for us.

  “Sofia! You sure are a sight for sore eyes,” I whispered as I took her hands in mine.

  “You made it!” I had never seen her so relieved. But then she frowned. “Where’s your brother?”

  My face clouded over, and Karen sobbed quietly. “He...didn’t make it,” I said.

  Sofia squeezed my hand, and then Karen’s. “Oh no, I’m so sorry!”

  “Thank you.” I gave her a quick hug and stepped back. “There’s something I have to do now, so stay close to Karen, okay? And remember, both of you, I’m Brandon.”

  If I was going to stop Con, Jack and Matt, I had to get closer, so with Karen and Sofia in tow, I threaded my way through the crowd, which paid me no heed. The people were too busy adjusting their bags, checking their gear, and looking scared out of their wits, especially the family members. I felt a surge of pride knowing these people would be free of this prison town tonight because of me.

  Jack spotted us first. “Whoa! What happened to you, Brandon?” he whispered. “Are you hurt? You’re limping something chronic!”

  “You should see the other guys,” I replied. I was thankful it was pretty dark here behind the building, otherwise he would have freaked out big time since I was covered with blood.

  “What other guys?” Matt asked, frowning as he caught sight of me.

  “A couple of thugs trying to collect on my father's debts,” I said.

  Matt suddenly grabbed me and twisted my head so the light from an apartment window above us fell onto the right side of my face. “You’ve got a real shiner forming there, mate. And what’s that, blood?”

  I pushed his hands away. “It’s not mine.”

  “What on earth happened?”

  “Long story.”r />
  Jack noticed Karen and Sofia behind me and smiled bashfully, before looking frantically all around. “Where’s Chelsea?”

  “She’s isn't coming.”

  “What? No, she has to!” He looked absolutely crestfallen.

  “Sorry, she changed her mind. Wanted to–”

  Con was suddenly in my face – and he wasn’t happy. I could tell he wanted to ask how I found out the breakout was tonight, but to do so would reveal his hand in attempting to deceive me. Plus, if I reacted badly it could create an ugly scene, something he needed to avoid with so many witnesses about.

  “Where the blazes you been this week, Boy? You seriously expect us to believe you were sick for a whole week? Again?” he growled.

  I drew up to my full height, grimaced from the extra weight on my battered leg, and looked up into his beady eyes, which glinted in the poor light. I was about to make an excuse that I hurt my arm, but recalled just in time that I already gave that explanation to Jack when he saw me as myself with my arm in a sling.

  “We gonna stand here yabbering all day or we gonna get this show on the road?” I asked. I needed to get this over and done with before fear got the better of me.

  Con sneered at me and turned back to the other foragers, who had just finished putting the finishing touches on the girl who would be the distraction. She looked a real fright: messed up hair, torn clothes, and covered in tomato sauce.

  “All set?” he asked.

  The foragers nodded.

  “Do I have to do this? I’m scared.” The girl’s voice wavering. I wondered who she was.

  “Just do exactly what we told you and you’ll be fine, Younger Sister,” Gerry said. So, his kid sister.

  Con grabbed a walky-talky from his pocket, whispered into it, and nodded. “The guys on the other side of the gate are ready.”

  “Okay, let’s do this!” Matt said. Immediately, a dozen strong, muscular foragers congregated around our position. They were armed with baseball bats, wooden clubs, expanding batons, and in Con’s case, a metal battering ram. A few of them, including Con and Gerry, had handguns tucked in the back of their trousers.