Elliot frowned. “We picked this place because it was defensible. Maybe it’s time to stop running every time a threat surfaces.”
“There are thousands of them, Elliot. Thousands. Even if they’re lousy fighters, the sheer numbers…”
“I know. I’m just – everyone’s tired of having to move just when we get settled.”
“Not much to be done about it.”
Elliot walked away, lost in thought. Sierra neared Julie and Arnold with Eve in tow. “Thank you so much. All of you. I…it was like a part of me died when they took her.”
“Well, she’s back now, so you can spoil her rotten,” Julie said.
“If there’s anything I can ever do for you, let me know. Anything at all. I mean it.”
Devin smiled from behind Arnold and looked to Anne. “All I want is a bath and a hot meal.”
Anne nodded. “Me too.”
Julie took Arnold’s hand and gave him a knowing look. “We’ve got some unfinished business to discuss, but a bath and some food sounds awesome.”
“We do?” Arnold said, and then swallowed drily. “Oh. Of course. Right.”
“Elliot!” a voice cried from the cabin Elliot used as his office. “Transmission coming in. It’s Lucas!”
Elliot hurried to the operator, who handed him a headset. “He’s on the air now.”
Elliot lowered himself onto the tree stump the operator was using as a chair and sat forward to transmit. “Lucas?”
Lucas’s voice rang in his ears. “Elliot.”
“Where are you? Are you on your way back?”
“Took a detour.” Lucas told him about Astoria, Newport, Salem, and finished with Seattle.
Elliot was speechless when he finished. “You…you’re in Seattle now?”
“That’s right. We drove the Chinese out, and we’re putting the finishing touches on a self-defense force for the city.”
“I don’t understand. Is Ruby all right?”
“She’s in Salem. We’re going to head out shortly. Maybe tomorrow. But, Elliot? We have something like three thousand fighters, and about five hundred more in Salem. It’s a big group.”
“That it is. What are you planning to do with them, Lucas?”
“We’ll need to talk about that when I hit Salem. But the mood is to return to Shangri-La and clear the warlords out of the cities along the way.”
“That’s…that would be amazing if you could do it.”
“I’m not thrilled about it, but it looks like we can. We beat the Chinese three times, and they’re an actual army. A gang like the Crew wouldn’t be anywhere near as tough.”
Sierra appeared at the door. “Let me talk to him.”
Elliot welcomed her in. “Lucas, we had some trouble since you left.” He gave Lucas a brief rundown on the recent encounter with the church. When he was done, Lucas’s question was almost a whisper.
“Is Eve okay?”
“Yes, yes. Everyone’s fine. Sierra’s right here. She wants to talk to you.”
“Put her on. I’ll radio when we get to Salem.”
“Will do.”
Sierra took the headphones and replaced Elliot in the seat. “Lucas! Are you okay?”
“Yes. I can’t wait to get home. It’s been way longer than I hoped.”
“Where are you?”
Lucas repeated his story.
“So…you’re now the leader of some army?”
“Not exactly.”
“That’s what it sounds like. What about us? What happened to living out our days together as a family?”
“We will. I’m headed home after I pick up Ruby.”
“That sounds like it could be another month, Lucas. At least. And with some army on foot…we might never see you again.”
“Nothing’s going to stop me from coming home, Sierra. Nothing.”
The transmission broke up. Lucas’s voice returned, but distorted. “Power’s almost gone here. I love you, Sierra. I’ll call from Salem. I swear.”
“I love you too, Lucas,” she said, but all she heard in her headset was static.
Duke approached Elliot, who was deep in discussion with one of his advisors. “I’m going to head back to the trading post with Luis,” he said. “Nothing much for me to do here.”
Elliot put a hand on his shoulder briefly. “I’m sorry about Ellen.”
Duke waved the comment away. “Don’t be. I was a fool. But there is the question of what’s next. You going to move the town? If so, where are you thinking?”
“We haven’t decided. But if we do, it’ll be somewhere we can lay down real roots. I’m thinking it won’t be Shangri-La anymore. Maybe that idea isn’t realistic now, or even necessary. Perhaps we should find an abandoned town and settle there, and just be residents of the town. Normal people. Now that the vaccine’s in wide distribution, the purpose of Shangri-La’s largely over.”
“I don’t know. The idea of an enclave where everyone’s trustworthy and living in peace, far from where marauders or others can reach it, has a lot of appeal.”
“That’s why I said we’re thinking about it. I’ll contact you and let you know.”
“The trading post needs to move, too. We can’t risk the church attacking us out of retribution. If Ellen told them how I led her to you, they’ll come for us.”
“That makes sense.”
“Maybe we’ll set one up in Colorado Springs and call it something different so they don’t put two and two together. Luis’s Trading Post has a ring to it.”
“Let me know what you decide.”
“You too.”
Elliot watched the defeated trader mount up and ride down the trail with Luis at his side, and exhaled softly. Just when everything should have been going well, with the nightmare virus contained, the Crew threat eliminated, and a new home in the making, the world had thrown them curves, and the future looked more uncertain, not less, with every sunrise.
“Well, hell,” he muttered, and then caught sight of Sierra walking from the cabin with Eve’s hand in hers and Tim’s clutched in her other, the sun shining off the children’s hair like halos.
In spite of his dark thoughts, he smiled.
Perhaps everything would work out after all.
Thanks for reading The Day After Never – Havoc,
(Book VII in the Day After Never series.)
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Turn the page to read an excerpt from
A Girl Apart
Excerpt from A Girl Apart
© Russell Blake 2017 – all rights reserved
Chapter 1
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Emilia ran tired fingers through her thick ebony hair as she and a pair of co-workers pushed through the iron gates of the factory grounds. They offered waves to a grinning security guard and continued down the cracked sidewalk, the darkness enveloping the street as the spotlights from the compound faded behind them. In the dim light she squinted at her fingers, whose nails were worn to the quick by another twelve-hour shift on an assembly line that never stopped. She sighed. Although barely out of her teens, Emilia had the hands of a middle-aged fishwife, and her joints ached like those of a geriatric, not a slim young woman with a quick smile and a bouncing step.
The gloom deepened as the trio hurried along the empty street. Their shift had ended earlier, but Emilia had been forced to delay their departure for an unplanned meeting with her supervisor. Exhaust and sewage wafted on the breeze along with the pungent smell from the nearby Rio Grande river basin, its brown s
eepage only a few hundred meters away separating them from the United States and its world of impossible luxury and boundless prosperity.
“Slow down, Rosa,” Emilia said. “This isn’t a race.”
Rosa, the tallest of the three, her long legs wrapped in skintight jeans, her makeup garish as a showgirl’s, slowed and twisted her head toward Emilia. “You may not have a life, but I do, and I have a date tonight, so I need time to get ready.”
Emilia rolled her eyes. “You have a date every night.”
The third girl laughed, her eyes dancing as they flitted to Emilia. “You would too if you weren’t so standoffish.”
“You mean selective, don’t you, Marisol?” Emilia replied. “Is it my fault I won’t hop in the backseat with every shop clerk or truck driver with a smooth line?”
“Don’t knock it,” Rosa said with a shrug.
The glow of a street cart illuminated a corner of the empty intersection as they approached, and Marisol’s nose twitched at the aroma drifting from it. “Just a small one,” she said, and Rosa nodded.
“Not for me,” Emilia said, eyeing the fresh churros hanging from a bar over the cart front. “My mom’s making dinner.”
“This is dinner for me,” Rosa countered, smoothing her blouse over her flat stomach.
“That and a dozen Tecate Lights,” Marisol said, and the girls laughed.
The vendor wrapped their selections in brown paper and exchanged them for a few pesos before returning to his newspaper, the evening rush over, his only hope now to pick up a few stragglers late to work on the night shift. The maquiladora section of the city was a buzz of activity when the crews changed, but deserted much of the rest of the time. With over three hundred plants turning out everything from printers to hair dryers, the area along the border was a magnet for those without options, but nobody lingered in the factory strip after dark – the crime in Juárez was infamous, and even if you minded your own business, robbery or worse was a constant threat.
Emilia checked her watch as her friends chewed on the fried confections, cinnamon dusting their hands as they ate. Her stomach growled and Rosa eyed her, one brow raised, hip cocked at a saucy angle. Emilia laughed at the vision, her friend’s provocative outfit completely out of place on the dusty street.
The wages Emilia made amounted to a little over a hundred dollars a week, paltry even by Mexican standards, but better than nothing. With no degree or vocational skills, young women in the border town were limited in how they could make a living, and those uninterested in prostitution or serving fast food were faced with grim choices in a labor market constantly swelled by a surge of unskilled Central American workers hoping to build nest eggs before sneaking across the river to the promised land beyond.
The girls finished their treats, wiped their hands on scraps of paper that served as napkins, and proceeded down the street toward a larger intersection with a dozen bus stops within a block of each other. Rosa’s cell phone chirped from her back pocket as they passed a narrow alley, where an emaciated dog with drooping teats from a fresh litter foraged for scraps near a pile of garbage.
“Hello?” Rosa answered, and then giggled at something the caller said. Emilia and Marisol exchanged a knowing look, and Emilia shook her head as they slowed so their friend could fake amusement at whatever her latest suitor was saying.
A pair of dim headlamps swung from behind them and bounced over the uneven pavement. Rosa chattered on her phone as the vehicle approached, but Marisol slipped her arm through Emilia’s, her expression troubled. Ciudad Juárez had long been synonymous with unexplained disappearances of young female factory workers, and even though the crime wave had abated, rumors still circulated about this girl or that who’d ended her shift, left for home, and was never seen again.
Emilia’s brow furrowed as the van drew near, and her mouth formed a silent O when it screeched to a stop beside them and the side door slid wide with a clatter. Two men wearing dark leather jackets and jeans leapt out and rushed the girls, who drew back in shock. Rosa screamed as the assailants waved handguns at them, and the nearest slapped the phone from her hand.
Marisol’s eyes widened when the second gunman stuck his pistol in her face and then shifted his aim to Emilia, who stood frozen, purse clutched to her chest. The man eyed her terrified expression, and then his gaze drifted to her yellow top and black pants and his mouth twisted in an ugly grin. He nodded to his partner, and they lunged forward and seized Emilia by the arms. She struggled and cried out as they manhandled her toward the van. Marisol ran after them, swinging her purse like a weapon, her stocky frame moving surprisingly fast. The bag caught one of the men in the back of the head, and he cursed and spun around. Marisol tried to kick him in the balls, but he saw the move coming and sidestepped it. A brutal blow from the pistol to the side of her head sent her sprawling to the ground. Her attacker stood, pistol leveled at Marisol curled in a ball on the sidewalk as his companion forced Emilia into the van.
“You’re lucky tonight,” he snarled, and then made for the door, where Emilia was staring from the interior with a look of horror on her face as the other gunman pressed his weapon against her temple.
The engine revved, and the second attacker jumped into the van. He pulled the door closed, and the vehicle tore off with a screech of rubber, leaving Rosa and Marisol to choke on a cloud of exhaust. Rosa squinted at the back of the van, trying to make out a license number, but there was no plate, only a pair of cracked taillights flickering above a dented bumper. Marisol struggled to her feet and screamed for help. Rosa moved to where her phone lay on the sidewalk and scooped it up, and then swore when she saw the shattered screen.
“Don’t just stand there,” Marisol cried. “We have to do something.”
Panicked tears coursed down Rosa’s face as she held up the broken cell for Marisol to see, and then she joined her in screaming for help, their voices echoing off the ribbon of pavement that stretched endlessly into the gloom.
Chapter 2
El Paso, Texas
A faded sign announcing Whispering Pines, Apartments 4 Rent rattled in the morning breeze before a dilapidated string of low-rent dwellings around a courtyard devoid of anything resembling conifers. A harried-looking young woman emerged from one of the apartments and rushed along the path to the front gate, a battered messenger bag in hand and a purse hanging from her shoulder, auburn hair pulled back in a loose ponytail as she scanned her cell phone screen through heavy black-framed glasses.
“Leah! Hold up. You got a minute?” a scratchy female voice called from the first unit’s open doorway.
Leah paused, her lips pursing in annoyance. “Not really, Aunt Connie. I’m late again.”
Aunt Connie stepped from the doorway, hair in curlers, her face weathered by decades of cigarettes and drugstore bourbon. “Didn’t see you come in last night.”
“I worked late,” Leah said, her tone reasonable.
“You might have called to let me know.”
Leah drew a measured breath. “I was really busy with a story.”
That drew a worried frown. “I was worried about you.”
“We’ve talked about this before. There’s no reason to be. The hours go with the job.”
Aunt Connie’s scowl deepened. “I don’t like not knowing where you are.”
“I appreciate that. But you really don’t have to worry about me.”
Leah’s aunt eyed her baggy cargo pants and hastily chosen top with a raised eyebrow. “I thought that maybe you had a date or something. That would be nice. But then when it got so late…”
Leah groaned inwardly. Not this again.
“Your concern’s appreciated, but–”
“You’re still seeing that nice Bill boy, aren’t you?”
Leah bit back the sharp response that rose in her throat in favor of something more diplomatic. “No, as I explained before, we broke up when I moved to New York.” Leah had brought Bill, a co-worker she had been dating at the time, to a fa
mily event four years earlier, and he’d obviously made a lasting impression.
Aunt Connie nodded sadly. “Oh, that’s right. Well, it’s just a shame to see you…spending your life without a family.”
“You’re family, Aunt Connie. And I’m not lonely, really. But what I am is late this morning, so…”
“I know I’m the only family you have here, Leah, and that’s why I worry, girl. It’s just… I don’t want to get in your way, but I’d appreciate the courtesy of a phone call if you’re going to be out half the night. These days you can never be too careful.”
“I know, and as I’ve said before, I’m always careful. And I was at work. Inside. At my desk. Working.” Leah glanced to where her beater car was parked only a few yards away. Only a few of the units had a parking slot, and so she was one of the unlucky ones relegated to battle it out on the street. She did her best to avoid letting her impatience show. “We can talk about this later, but I really need to get moving if I’m still going to have a job at all.”
Before her aunt could respond again, Leah spun on her heel and made for the car. Ever since she’d returned to El Paso three months earlier, she’d been trying to get along with a relative she’d never known very well, and one who seemed compelled to mother Leah as if she were twelve. Leah accepted that she was exchanging some amount of companionship for a more-than-reasonable rent, but she wished she could go about her business without feeling she owed an explanation for her lifestyle, let alone her whereabouts.
Leah’s gray Chevrolet Malibu’s lock resisted her effort to open it, as it did every morning, and she forced herself to calm down and not take it personally. The clunker had been a budget purchase from a questionable used-car lot that extended credit at usurious rates and had been willing to accept a paltry down payment, so what could she expect? That it ran at all was a minor miracle, and she gently worked the key until the lock flipped open, reminding herself to be thankful for what she had.
The Day After Never (Book 7): Havoc Page 25