The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  “I did have a relationship with you before,” she continued. “But I was too scared of losing you to ask you the question. Now I want an answer, what does this woman mean to you?”

  “You need to lower your voice. I think we’re starting to attract attention,” Tyler said quietly as he pointed to some of the buildings around them where a few faces had pressed near the glass.

  “Can we talk about this when we’re off the street?” Aeric asked.

  “No, asshole. I want to know if you were just using me for sex before.”

  “Are you kidding me? Me using you? Don’t you think that’s like the pot calling the kettle black?”

  “I want an answer. It shouldn’t be that hard to get a straight answer out of you. Are you dating Veronica or what?”

  Aeric sighed. “Look, I met her for one night. Sure, we hit it off, but there was nothing sexual about it, just friends. She told us about San Angelo and honestly, if it’s even half as good as she said it would be, then it’s a hundred times better than out here.”

  “That’s it? You just want someplace safe to go; nothing else?”

  “Yeah, Katie, that’s it. I’d been trying to find a place for my mom and me to go, but she—” Aeric glanced over at his friend. “She’s dead now.”

  In truth, he didn’t know what had happened. When he was being tortured for the first time, naked and afraid in front of everyone who cheered the men on, he’d seen Tyler’s bloody and unconscious form carried across the chamber. Since no one else was brought in, he assumed that they were all gone.

  In truth, he didn’t know what, if anything, Veronica meant to him. She’d offered him a chance to go someplace that might have been unaffected by the war. Like Tyler, he needed a goal to focus on. “Can we just keep walking? We need to get inside somewhere,” Traxx said. “This town has changed. It’s not the fun, beautiful city that it used to be. Now it’s just a wasted shell where humans exist until they die.”

  *****

  They ducked in and out of doorways, taking advantage of the shadows as much as possible as the morning began to lighten. Finally, they saw the building where Veronica lived and they rushed forward. Aeric snorted in derision as they passed three skeletons near the middle of her parking lot. Animals had eaten most of the flesh from the thugs that he and Tyler had killed when they stayed the night at Veronica’s. No one had even bothered to remove the bodies to the piles that ringed the city.

  The glass doorway to the back stairs was little more than a jagged frame of glass shards and metal. They didn’t need to open it, they simply stepped through the door and made for the stairs. Aeric’s sense of déjà vu was overwhelming as he pushed open the stairwell door and used the chair to block it once again when they were inside. It was as if the place had been totally abandoned and not touched since the night they left more than three months ago.

  That wasn’t the reality of the situation, though. There were dried blood stains in the stairwell that most definitely were not there the first time that they’d come through the apartment and the building had a much colder, abandoned feel to it. The concrete of the stairs radiated the early morning chill and a puff of steam appeared before their faces every time they breathed out. Their bodies would soon begin to cool after their run from the palace building. If they didn’t get clothing soon, they were in danger of becoming sick—or worse.

  The trip up the stairs to the seventh floor was unnervingly similar and horribly different at the same time. The blood and other bodily fluids twisted Aeric’s recollections of that first night after the power went out into a bizarre mockery of his memories. When they reached the top, the hallway door stood slightly ajar due to an old shoe that had been used to prop it open.

  They slid silently along the wall towards Veronica’s apartment. Signs of fighting and property destruction littered the hallway. Bullet holes peppered the walls at various points and almost every doorframe that they came to showed signs of damage from being kicked in.

  When they arrived at Veronica’s door, it was the same story. Her door had been forced open at some point. Aeric wondered who could have systematically gone through the building, entering every apartment. Of course, after his time with them, the answer was obvious. The Vultures had probably come through to collect food and useful items, that way the population would have to rely on them for its survival.

  He nudged her door open with the barrel of the pistol and entered Veronica’s ransacked apartment. No one was in the living room, her television had been smashed, movies covered the floors, and even the couch cushions looked like they’d been ripped open with a knife.

  They cleared the apartment rapidly. Her kitchen was predictably empty of any foodstuffs and the bedroom had been torn apart by the Vultures who’d been looking for anything of value. It made him sick to his stomach. The only bright spot that he could cling to was the absence of any blood or signs of a struggle besides the damage done by the animals’ that’d searched the apartment.

  Katie found Veronica’s note crumpled on the floor behind the couch. She read it and snorted before handing it to Aeric. He glanced at her strange reaction and read the note.

  Aeric,

  I hope you made it to Missouri and found your mom and dad. It’s been eight days since you left and my father finally arrived this morning. I’m sure by now that you know about the nuclear war. His car stopped working and he had to find a bicycle to make it the rest of the way here, so that’s what took him so long.

  Things have gotten worse in Austin. The Vultures seem to be everywhere and I hear gunfire constantly. I’ve tried to stay away from the windows like you told me to, but I’ve been tempted and seen some pretty bad things happen out on the street. Please, leave the city at once and go to my father’s house at the address that I gave you.

  My dad is checking for anything useful, one last time, before we go in a few minutes. Then we have to find a bike for me, it’s too far to walk to… Well, you know where. God, I wish my horse was here!

  Tell Tyler that I’ve been thinking a lot about the two of you and I can’t wait to meet back up with you when you get there.

  See you soon,

  Veronica

  She’d kissed the paper beside her signature with a purple lipstick. What the hell was that about?

  He handed the letter over to Tyler who skimmed it and then said, “We should go get clothes before we rest,” Tyler said wearily.

  “Yeah. You’re right,” Traxx agreed. “Katie, I need you to stay here and keep this apartment secured while we go to the one next door and try to find some clothing.”

  Kate started to protest, then decided against it and nodded her head instead. “I risked my ass to rescue you two and killed two men. Don’t mess around and get yourselves killed trying to get some clothing.”

  “It’s just across the hall,” Aeric replied. “It shouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes. Once we get back, I’ll knock twice. That’ll be your signal to let us back in.”

  He considered leaving, knowing that she’d probably been with that madman last night and hadn’t had a chance to clean herself, but decided to suppress his emotions and gave Kate a quick peck on the cheek, saying, “We’ll be right back.”

  “Yeah, and we’re gonna talk about Veronica. Seriously, what kind of woman wears purple lipstick?”

  Aeric suppressed the urge to sigh and went through the doorway behind Tyler. They crept across the hall and stood on either side of the door like they’d seen in countless police and military movies. It made sense to not get shot through the door if there was a trigger-happy squatter living in the dead man’s apartment. When they were ready, Tyler knocked softly and they waited. There wasn’t a response so he knocked a little harder.

  The door pushed open with this knock and Aeric called inside, “Anyone home? We’re from across the hall.”

  There still wasn’t a response, so Aeric went inside, pistol first. This apartment had been ransacked much the same as Veronica’s. No one was
in the apartment, so they went back to the bedroom as they’d done all those months ago and grabbed as many changes of clothing as they could. They’d figure out what fit and what didn’t once they were back in the apartment with Katie.

  It took three trips to move the clothing and footwear from the other apartment. Once they were done, they locked the door with the chain lock and blocked it with the couch. They were mildly certain that they were secure, so Aeric and Tyler began trying on clothing while Katie went into Veronica’s bathroom to use whatever was left in there to clean herself up.

  “There are some wet toilet wipes that have moisture left in them and the toilet reservoir is still over half full,” she announced when she returned. “You boys smell horrible, maybe you should go get cleaned up as much as possible. There’s also a small first aid kit under the sink, so once you’re cleaned, I can bandage the worst of your wounds.”

  “Thanks,” Aeric replied. “Did you happen to find any antibiotics or Tylenol or anything like that?”

  She shook her head. “No. If she had any, it must have been taken by whoever searched the place.”

  Aeric took a bowl into the bathroom so he could scoop out water for washing from the toilet basin without contaminating their only potential drinking source. He used a washcloth and tried to wash away the grime, dried body fluids and excrement as best that he could. He took special care around the hole in his side that he’d almost forgotten about until now. The cream-colored cloth quickly turned black with the nastiness. When he was finally done, he looked at himself in the mirror.

  He was thankful for the poor lighting in the bathroom. He’d lost a lot of weight during the trip to and from Missouri, but he looked positively skinny now. The months in captivity, barely kept above starvation levels and the constant physical abuse had taken their toll on his body. At least he was mostly whole, Tyler looked much worse.

  Aeric had to wake his buddy from a deep slumber so he could go into the bathroom to clean his own wounds. Once he was gone, Aeric asked Katie, “How are you holding up?”

  “As good as can be expected, I guess. There was a lot of messed up stuff that happened at the Vulture’s palace. The shitty part is that I’ve already become numb to the things that happen in this world now.”

  He thinned his lips in a grimace. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were still kids, they should be out having fun, worrying about exams and making poor decisions on the weekend, not killing people and fighting off evil bastards.

  “I’m sorry for what you went through. It shouldn’t have been like that. You should have stayed with the others outside of the city.”

  “What, and then just left when you didn’t come back? I don’t think so, Aeric. I love you.”

  Well, there you had it. She still had feelings for him, even after he tried to choke her to death, called her horrible names and now the letter that Veronica kissed. “I didn’t want you to get involved in all of this,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “Aeric, it’s been a long time since we split up with your mom and…and Julie. Remember that day, when I told you that it wasn’t your choice whether I went with you or not? I go with you wherever you go from here on out. Period. We’ll deal with the whole Veronica mess when we get to San Angelo and can go to sleep without looking over our shoulder.”

  He smiled at her words and gritted his teeth. “Here, let me clean that puncture wound in your side.” Katie indicated his ribs where Justin had stabbed him with the fireplace poker after he’d jabbed out Tyler’s eye. “That’s gonna get infected soon if we don’t get it cleaned and covered up.”

  Aeric lay on his side while she used a generous amount of alcohol. His body had become so accustomed to injury that it barely registered with him. Her hands were gentle as she used paper towels to clean away the liquids that erupted from the injury. He thought about the hatred for her that had festered during his captivity and how wrong about her that he’d been. He felt ashamed of his actions and vowed to himself that he would do whatever he could to make it up to her.

  Tyler returned from the restroom and she doctored him the best that she could. None of them knew what to do for his eye except to clean around the edges and cover it. Katie didn’t want to use the alcohol down inside the socket like she’d done for Aeric’s wound since she wasn’t sure that would be beneficial. What they really needed was a substantial first aid booklet.

  Besides the eye, Tyler was missing his right ear, both of his pinkie fingers, his nipples had been sliced off and he’d been repeatedly whipped with a metal-tipped flail. Aeric was amazed that the big man was upright, let alone that he had the energy to run for almost twenty blocks.

  Almost as soon as they were done working on him, Tyler collapsed onto the ripped couch and passed out. They moved silently across the room and Aeric lifted the blinds slightly to look out onto the gloomy Austin morning. It wasn’t a pretty sight and he dropped the slat back into place.

  Katie came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his back. “Can we go lay down?”

  “Yeah, I’m really tired,” he replied and then he looked around the room. The clothing that they’d pilfered lay in piles according to what fit whom. He was exhausted and needed to sleep. The long months on the road had conditioned him to prepare their supplies if they were surprised in the night and had to make a run for it, though. It took him a few minutes to make modified knapsacks out of a couple of long-sleeved t-shirts and then he stuffed everything inside. It would keep their clothing together while they ran down the stairs if it came to that.

  Aeric and Katie walked awkwardly back to the bedroom. He thought about how he’d fantasized about having sex with Veronica in that very bed and what that meant for his relationship with Kate. They didn’t bother to try to do anything, though. Almost as soon as they were horizontal, they were both snoring.

  *****

  The noise wouldn’t go away. Had those bastards devised a new way of torturing him? He tried to open his eye, but couldn’t see anything. His body registered that he was lying on his left side, had they laid him down for today’s torture session?

  Once again, the noise came, this time more clearly now that he was partially awake. It was someone’s voice repeating the same phrase over and over, although it didn’t necessarily sound like a normal voice. The message came again and he realized that he was hearing a speaker. Someone was using an electronic speaker to broadcast their voice.

  Tyler sat up quickly and immediately regretted it as the world came crashing back into his head. It felt like it was going to explode and the pain where his eye should have been was excruciating. He staggered to the window and saw a short convoy of Army Humvees traveling slowly down Guadalupe. Seeing the trucks driving was strange enough, but the fact that their electronics worked was nearly enough to send him into shock—or maybe it was the blood loss that those assholes had caused.

  The speaker on the lead Humvee continually repeated the phrase, “Traxx… We know you’re out here and we’re coming for you!”

  He thought about it for a moment. They didn’t know anything. They were trying to spook Aeric into doing something foolish so they could find him. Austin was a big city and there was no way that they even knew what direction that they’d gone in. The key was keeping a low profile and not letting anyone see them who could turn them in for food.

  Tyler thought about it for a moment and then made the decision to go talk to Aeric. He hoped that he wasn’t interrupting the two of them having sex, but it was important to discuss their shared future. He walked down the hall, dragging his feet to make as much noise as possible and then knocked softly on the door.

  After a second knock, Aeric replied, “Wha—?”

  “Hey, it’s Ty. We need to talk about what’s going on outside.”

  “Outside?”

  Tyler sighed, his friend was obviously still asleep. “Are you guys decent? It’d be easier to talk to you in person
.”

  “Sure, come in, buddy.”

  He opened the door and saw that they were both still in bed. Katie’s arms were draped across Aeric and she was still asleep. He was amazed that they were able to sleep through the announcements outside. They’d seemed extremely loud to him, maybe the two of them had a late night. After what Katie had done for them, he’d never begrudge her anything that she wanted. Ever.

  “Did you hear the messages that the Vultures were playing outside?”

  “No?” Aeric answered with a questioning lilt at the end of his word.

  “They’re driving up and down the street in those Humvees that they have calling out for ‘Traxx’ and saying that they know where you are.”

  Aeric slid away from Kate and started to throw on his clothes. “Whoa, hold on, man,” Tyler said, placing a restraining hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about it. They don’t know where you are. They probably have groups of men searching all over the city and they’re just trying to flush us out of hiding.”

  Aeric sat heavily on the bed and Kate pulled herself up close to his thigh. “Morning, Ty,” she mumbled. Apparently, she was content to lay in bed with Aeric until they made a decision.

  “Good evening, Katie,” he replied. “I think the best thing to do is to lay low for a couple of days and let this thing settle down.”

  Aeric nodded his head. “Yeah, I think you’re right. They probably don’t have a clue where we are.” He took a deep breath and continued, “And you’re also right about holing up here for a while, although I don’t want to. What are we gonna do for food?”

  “I guess we’ll have to scrounge.”

  “Kinda hard to keep a low profile if we’re out searching for food, huh?” Aeric muttered.

  “Maybe we can find stuff here in the building. It’s doubtful, but it’s better than the alternative of going out and interacting with people who might try to turn us in.”