“Okay then. I’ll take you to see the mayor and his daughter. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”
Julie frowned and stared at the ground. “I don’t know. I’ve never met her before. Aeric and Tyler knew her. Tyler died when we were ambushed in Austin and I have no idea what happened to Aeric or my sister Kate. I didn’t know what else to do, so I followed our original plan to come here. Now that I’m here, I feel kinda stupid. I mean, Veronica doesn’t know me at all.”
Shellie shrugged. “Well, you’ve come all this way. Let’s go see what she has to say.”
Julie nodded. Shellie was right. She’d traveled a long way, more than half of it by herself with Kayla. It was time to meet the woman whom she’d hung the possibility of her survival upon. “I bet she’s going to be surprised to see us,” she muttered.
*****
Thumping on his bedchamber door woke Justin. He sat up rapidly and his hand blindly found the pistol that sat beside the bed. He disengaged the combination trigger lock by feel and aimed the weapon loosely towards the door.
“What is it?” he shouted.
Movement to his side told him that his worthless whore, Kate, was finally waking up. She could fuck really well and was finally starting to fill out with all the food that he fed her, but he was sick of her whining and annoying talking. Why the hell did she always want to talk? He thought about cutting her tongue out, but then decided against it since it would limit her sexual abilities.
“My lord, its Greg Sanders. May I come in?” a voice on the other side of the door asked.
He glanced down at Kate’s exposed breasts and briefly considered letting the captain come inside so he could see Justin’s conquest. Instead, he replied, “No, I’ll come out. Give me a moment.”
Justin put the safety mechanism back on the pistol and set it on the nightstand. He didn’t trust Kate. Even though she fucked him, she’d probably try to kill him if he left any weapons around. Hell, he would try to kill her if the situation was reversed. Once he was dressed, he walked across the thick rugs that had been piled on the floor to ease the chill in the air and opened the door to his bedchamber.
In the hallway, the former Army captain, who’d since become his most trusted henchman, was already dressed in his battle fatigues for the day. He’d done away with the silly gray digitized version that he’d been wearing the day the war started and he decided to join forces with the Vultures. Instead, he now wore the different version that the military had used in Afghanistan, which blended in much better with the various earth tones of the city’s rubble.
“What is it, Captain Sanders?”
“Sir, we’ve received word of a major attack against our forces near Buda.”
“Buda? Is that some sort of Hindu mosque or some shit?”
“Uh… No, sir. It’s a town south of Austin along the interstate. That’s been our unofficial boundary where we collect stragglers coming up from the wasteland of San Antonio.”
Justin’s hand whipped out lightning fast and slapped Sanders across the face. The man bristled, but the bedchamber guards were enough to make him stand down. Justin decided that he’d have to watch the man closely. He was a valuable resource—a resource that obviously needed reminding of who was in charge. “I know where Buda is. I was making a joke.”
The captain smiled, the blood on his teeth making it look like a sneer instead. “Of course, my lord. Forgive my stupidity.”
He waved the man’s apology away. “Come to the map room and tell me what you’re talking about.”
They made the quick trip down the stairs to the map room, which was adjacent to where he held court every day. Inside, they had a large-scale map of the city of Austin and the surrounding communities. The Vulture’s secret warehouses were also marked on there. If word of their locations ever reached the populace, then his grip on power would be loosened.
“As you know, we have several tanks guarding each of the main entrances to the city,” Captain Sanders indicated on the map where all the major roads came into Austin.
Justin yawned and told one of the guards to go get him coffee. “Yes, I know about your tanks,” he replied dismissively.
“Of course, my lord. The team in the south near Buda was attacked by a massive pack of what they’re calling wolves and—”
“Wait a minute,” Justin interrupted. “You woke me to tell me about a pack of dogs?”
Sanders cringed at his words, which brought a smile to Justin’s face. “They weren’t regular dogs, sir. They tore through the ranks, killing twenty men. The tank crews buttoned up inside their vehicles and used the machine guns to kill the creatures.”
“So a pack of vicious, hungry dogs killed some of our men. What’s the big deal?”
“I would agree with you, my lord, but the survivors say that the wolves—the dogs—were crazed and much stronger than anything they’d ever encountered.” Sanders swallowed the spit that had built up in his mouth and continued, “Sir, the men are worried about mutations. It would be of great value if you could visit them and ease their fears.”
“Mutations? How the hell am I supposed to ease their fears about something that will probably happen?” Justin drummed his fingers on the map table. “Okay, fine. I’ll make a trip down there and see these animals for myself and pat a few of my soldiers on the back.”
“Thank you! I know the men will be excited to see you.”
The guard returned with his cup of coffee. “I need this in a travel mug, you idiot! God, I swear that I’m surrounded by morons!”
Once the coffee fiasco was sorted out, he mounted up into the captain’s Humvee and they drove to the edge of the city. Along the way, Justin commented on the subtle layers of defense that Sanders had put into place. The city was a fortress that could withstand any attack. Their only long-term problem would be the lack of food production. He took a note on a scrap of paper to find out if any of his people had been chemical engineers before the war. He would get them working with the farmers on how to balance out the acidity of the soil so they could grow crops. Once the city was producing its own food, they would be the ultimate power in the region—maybe even in the entire world.
They came upon the battle ground after a twenty minute drive. Sure enough, the dead and wounded were scattered across the checkpoint. It had been dogs that attacked, some of them had giant tumors while others had clearly been burned and injured beyond recognition not long before. A few of the dogs even had the remnants of collars around their necks.
He bent down to check the tag of a particularly nasty beast. It had made the journey from Seguin, Texas which was about forty or fifty miles away. “How much do we know about San Antonio?”
“I’m sorry, my lord?” Sanders asked.
“We’ve always assumed that San Antonio was nuked based on the explosions to the south. Seguin is a suburb of San Antonio. If this dog survived, how do we know that the city was wiped out?”
“I’ll send a force right away,” the captain responded. “We’ll find out about the city.”
“Do I have to think of everything, Captain?”
“No, sir. I assumed that it was vaporized like everything else around us.”
“What if it wasn’t and there’s an army preparing to invade us? Or what if it was hit with a smaller bomb like they’d use at Fort Hood? We could be seeing more of these mutated creatures soon.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll send a team immediately.”
“Do that.” He walked to the corpse of another animal. The bitch’s tits were swollen with milk and she clearly had more of the tumors across her body. Justin stared southward in the direction of the animal’s attack. Would the genetic mutations start after only one generation? What had this thing given birth to out there?
The thought of something lurking in the ashy murk made his skin crawl. “Captain, I think we may be too far spread out. We should collapse our forces back towards the city and begin building earthworks.”
“Uh, earthworks, sir?
” the man asked.
He sighed. “You don’t know what earthworks are? You were in the Army for Christ’s sake. Earthworks are fortifications around a base or a town. Basically, they’re like walls.
“These things were just crazed, hungry dogs,” Justin continued. “Radiation will cause mutations and the things that come hunting for food will get nastier and nastier over time as the domestication is bred out of them. We need to build fortifications against those things before it’s too late.”
The captain saluted and said, “Yes, sir! I’ll work with your engineers to determine the best places for the city’s walls.”
“I want the river to be the heart of the city, not outside the walls. We’ll need to figure out a way to block access to the city by the river while still allowing the water to flow. Figure it out and then brief me this afternoon.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll send out the patrol to San Antonio and devise a plan to shrink our perimeter.”
“Good. Now take me back to the palace. All this talk about mutated creatures and invading armies has stressed me out already this morning. I’m in need of something that’s upstairs.”
*****
Katie watched as the torturers dragged the unconscious Colonel Harris from the throne room and then the housekeepers rushed in to wipe up the blood from the marble floor. Justin had ordered the coach castrated in front of everyone because he’d refused to call him “Lord Justin” today.
She’d spent almost a month in his constant company, so she didn’t understand why Justin had made such a big deal about the man refusing to obey this one time out of probably thirty or forty appearances before the leader of the Vultures. It was yet another example of his insatiable cruelty that seemed to know no bounds.
The former prom queen sat beside the hideous man every day, laughing at his stupid jokes and allowing him to rut inside of her multiple times a day with his tiny penis. She was only biding her time for the opportunity to present itself so that she could rescue Aeric and Tyler.
Katie hoped that they hadn’t broken mentally. She’d been able to convince Justin early on that keeping the men alive would be much more rewarding than killing them outright. It was up to them to keep it together in their minds until she could formulate a plan of escape. She’d seen the broken and battered body of the military man who’d kicked Justin out of the Army. By the time they were brought to the Vultures’ headquarters, the coach was missing most of his fingers, toes, even his ears had been mutilated. She knew that if that type of damage was done to either of the two men whom she’d traveled with from Missouri, then they might go crazy. The daily burns that her poor Aeric endured were her idea. It would at least keep him whole enough to attempt an escape.
The way that her former lover stared daggers at her during his torture broke her heart. A few weeks ago, he’d stopped talking altogether and simply stared at her as his daily torture was administered. He was either going batshit crazy now, or his hatred for her was complete.
There was nothing that she could do about it though. So far, Justin hadn’t trusted her enough to allow weapons within easy reach and she was still escorted everywhere she went outside of the bedroom, including the bathroom. But all of that changed this morning when he went to oversee some type of operation down on the south side of the city and didn’t take the folding knife that now rested in the sole of her shoe.
Once Justin came back from the operation, he’d been in the mood for sex and she’d obliged him, not wanting to ruin her opportunity for later that evening. Then he’d wanted to see the colonel and the man’s public refusal to submit to the leader of the Vultures ultimately led to his fate. Maybe the man was tired of fighting to survive and had hoped that he would be killed for disobeying. What a messed up world we live in, she thought.
“Bring me the baseball player!” Justin ordered.
“Which one, my lord?” the jailer asked.
Katie’s heart skipped a beat and then increased in rhythm while she waited for Justin’s decision. Given the mood that he was in, all of her hard work at distraction and subterfuge to keep the two men alive might have been for nothing. If he ordered Aeric to call him lord and the man refused to talk, would he curse him the way he had the colonel?
She felt Justin’s eyes on her and she glanced over. He was staring at her and she smiled. “Bring me the man they call Traxx,” he said quietly.
Of course he knew that Aeric and Kate had been lovers, he even knew of their long-term relationship. When they’d first been taken prisoner, she told Justin about Aeric’s past in an effort to keep him alive, hoping that the madman cared enough about her to honor her wishes. It had worked so far, but there had been levels of depravity that she’d been forced to partake in that made her sick when she thought about them. Several times, Aeric had been chained to the bedroom wall while Justin had sex with her and another girl—Annie—then the man had ejaculated onto Aeric’s naked body. It was disgusting beyond belief.
The slow dragging of bare feet and the clinking of chains announced Aeric’s arrival in the throne room. Normally, the torturing occurred in the east wing of the former Texas State Capitol building, but the colonel’s castration in the throne room had proven that it could happen wherever the hell Justin wanted it to take place.
“Ah, Traxx. How are you today?”
Aeric stared straight ahead, not answering Justin, which was now the typical response that the crowd had grown to expect from him. Katie worried that today was not the day to test Justin. Something had happened earlier today to get him all riled up and set him on edge.
“You know, Traxx. I really enjoy your girlfriend’s attentions. She has such a calming effect on me.”
Aeric’s eyes shot up, flickering briefly on Justin and then settling on Kate. The look in his eyes made her change her mind. Now she hoped he would remain quiet instead of answering Justin’s barbs.
“You taught her how to move perfectly.” He stopped and switched his tactics, “Do you know what that jerk coach of yours tried to do today? No? Well let me tell you, he refused to bow down to me and to call me Lord Justin. Something he’s done ever since I first brought him here to the palace. He wouldn’t cooperate, so I took his testicles.”
A genuine look of fear flickered across Aeric’s scarred face and Justin noticed it. He clapped his hands excitedly, “Ah! So now we know what you’re afraid of. You don’t want your boys to go missing. That’s understandable. I empty mine every night into your girlfriend, so I would be devastated if they weren’t there anymore.”
Justin surged up from the large wooden seat that had been liberated from a Catholic church and brought into the capitol building to be his throne. As he walked forward, guards flanked him and he gripped Aeric’s testicles. First he pulled them hard towards himself and then he squeezed.
Aeric’s lip quivered slightly, but he still didn’t cry out so Justin released him and took a police baton from one of his men. He hit Aeric hard in the backs of his legs, causing him to collapse to his knees. “Finally! You kneel before me. You think I’m being cruel, Traxx. I’m not. I’m molding you into a stronger individual. You will look back on this one day and thank me.”
He waited expectantly for an answer that wouldn’t come. “Oh, fine. Take him away. He’s no fun. His big friend always offers us some entertainment, bring me the big Swede!”
“No!” Aeric’s thundering response caused everyone in the throne room to look his way. “Leave him alone. He’s suffered enough.”
“Oh, now you speak? I’ve been torturing you for weeks and you haven’t said a damn thing. Fucking your woman in front of you and you couldn’t be bothered to curse me. Now I talk about hurting your friend and you suddenly find your damned tongue?”
“He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“He is part of the problem! You are a part of the problem. The old world burned because of people like you. Self-centered, egotistical, pop culture junkies who could hit a ball and became instant celebrities. Millions
of people died because of your vanity—no, make that billions. You two have absolutely done something to me.”
“The Vultures are the ones who launched the nukes, not the common people who followed popular culture as a way to escape their daily grind. People like you are the—”
The police baton crashed hard against his ear and Aeric collapsed sideways. “Blasphemy! Where is that other one?” Justin screamed.
“Craig went to get him, my lord,” one of the guards answered.
“Who the fuck is Craig?” Justin asked in confusion. “Never mind, hurry up!”
The guard in question returned with a shackled Tyler in tow. “Ah, thank you, Craig!”
Justin walked rapidly to the fire pit that had been erected in the throne room. It was little more than a ring of bricks sitting on the floor where they burned wood to take some of the chill out of the air. He grabbed the poker that sat in the fire and walked back to Tyler.
“Hold him,” he ordered. “I am not the problem, Traxx. It’s men like you and your big friend here.”
He plunged the glowing hot poker into Tyler’s eye. Katie turned her head and covered her ears as the super-heated metal popped the mucus layer on Tyler’s eye and sizzled against the fluid inside. Tyler screamed for a few seconds, throwing the smaller guards around and then passed out.
Justin pulled the poker away and jabbed it roughly into Aeric’s ribs where it sank several inches. “Take these assholes back to the torture room.”
He fought visibly to control his emotions of anger and smoothed his hair into place before walking back to the throne. “I have tried to help those men repent for their sins against the old world, but they have refused. I can’t do anything else for them. At dawn tomorrow morning, we’ll have an old-fashioned hanging. These men will pay the ultimate price for their sins.”
The crowd murmured in approval of his decision and he turned to Katie and grabbed her by the wrist. “Come on, I need another release.”
TWELVE
The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition] Page 22