The Fall of Man: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 1

by J. V. Roberts

  Zach feigned a punch.

  Blake winced and emitted a little squeak of terror.

  The brothers shared a bout of laughter.

  “Toby, go get one of those lazy pricks off the wall to drag this little shit to the lockup.”

  Toby snorted compliance. As he passed by Blake he gave a lunge of his own. It didn’t render quite the same reaction. Zach followed in the footsteps of his brother, mumbling profanities and threats of violence.

  Blake took a deep breath, gathered his wits, and prepared to leave.

  Just as he reached the door, Colton rolled to his back, moaning. Liquids of various consistencies and colors leaked down his face and neck. “Thank you… Doc…”

  Blake stared down at the crumpled, bloody mess of wasted youth. “To hell with you, kid.”

  14

  Monte and his three man crew moved up the path towards the inn, partially shrouded by the predawn semi-darkness. The men at his back were on full alert, they had their angles covered; Eugene kept waving his damned shotgun at the sky.

  “Eugene, I don’t think anyone’s gonna ambush us from up there. If they do, we’re all done for anyway; just keep those eyes on my back.”

  There were a few goats tied up beneath a small overhang. They were feeding from a narrow trough. There was no sign of the boy, it was obvious that he’d tended to them recently; their grain was fresh and their water was clear. At the top of the path an unnerving scene began to unfold. There was a small field of broken glass and wood, mixed with spatters of blood. The blood ran in a thick trail from the glass, up the front steps and across the porch, vanishing beyond the closed door.

  Monte snatched his handgun from its holster. “Alright boys, eyes and ears open.”

  When Monte’s foot hit the first step it announced his presence, name and all. He crouched low, his men followed suit, all of them tracking the front door. “Be ready, boys.”

  There was a gunshot from inside. A small hole splintered the door and sent fragments of wood sailing past the left side of his head. He fell over sideways, extended his pistol, and let loose. He was spitting rounds as fast as he could pull the trigger. His men were right there with him, sending rifle rounds and buckshot through the door and in the direction of their invisible assailant. When they were done, only sawdust and gun-smoke hung in the entryway; the ghost of the departed door now rested in a pile of splinters.

  Monte only noticed the screaming after the gunshots stopped. It was Eugene; fat, old, slobbery Eugene. He was at the bottom of the steps, rolling around on his back. His right cheek was split in half, his teeth were visible. The bullet that had come through the door had found a target after all.

  “Hang in there buddy.” Monte got to his feet and reloaded. He took up cover on one side of the door. His remaining two men took the other. “Whoever is in there, throw it down; you ain’t gonna get another chance.”

  “You think they’re still alive?”

  Monte shrugged. “Damned if I know, you wanna poke your head in and find out?”

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was ya’ll.” It was the goat herder.

  Monte heard the clatter of the gun hitting the floor and immediately charged in. The boy was standing behind a bullet riddled counter. His hands were raised high above his head.

  “I’m sorry; really, I didn’t know it was ya’ll.” The panic in his voice found a new register with every step Monte took in his direction.

  Monte slid across the top of the counter and pummeled the boy in the chest with a knee. The boy bounced off the back wall and was met by a stiff fist. He fell to the ground, coughing and dripping blood from a broken nose.

  “You didn’t know it was us? You little shit! You blew half of Eugene’s face off!”

  “Kirl vat rittle bathtard!”

  “You hear that? Eugene wants me to kill you. I don’t like killing little kids, but Eugene is loyal, a good man, and what sort of leader would I be if I didn’t do right by him?” Monte grabbed the boy from the ground by his hair and set him back against the wall.

  The blood was running over his top lip and into his open mouth. “I didn’t know it was ya’ll, I swear it!”

  “Who’d you think it was?”

  “The big guy and the lady from the Union, I thought they came back to finish off me and my pa.”

  “Where are the men I sent?”

  The boy silently blotted his nose. His eyes bounced around the room and welled up with tears.

  Monte punched the wall a few inches above the boy’s head, creating a fist sized hole. “Where are my men, goat herder?”

  “Out back! I buried them out back!”

  “You buried them? You buried my men? All of them?”

  “They killed them all! Killed them like they was nothing.”

  “You warned them we were coming, didn’t you? You little shit!”

  The kid tried to move his head away from the barrel of Monte’s gun, but there was no refuge to be found beyond the hard, flat embrace of the wall. “No sir, no! I swear I didn’t! They messed up my pa too, real bad, go see for yourself.”

  Monte looked around the room, silently consulting with the two remaining members of his crew, while Eugene continued to howl away at the bottom of the stairs outside. “Where’s your pa?”

  “Upstairs, it’s the last room on the right.”

  “Let’s play this out. Boys, have this little shit show you where he buried our men. I’m gonna go have a chat with his pa. After that we’ll figure out what’s what.”

  The boy went along without resistance, one hand still pinching his nostrils.

  “Come on you little prick, show us where you buried our friends.”

  While his men escorted the goat herder out the backdoor, Monte made way for the staircase. The blood trail from outside had slowed to a trickle. Dried droplets decorated every other step. “You listen here, you drunk old fool. Your boy already took a pot-shot at us and I had to whoop his ass a little. I’ll kill you if you shoot at me. So, if you’ve got a gun, you just go ahead and tuck it away, understand?” Monte was at the top of the staircase, his back was against the wall; he had one foot in the hall, testing the waters.

  “I ain’t got no damn gun. Ain’t got no damn legs. Ain’t got no damn nothing. Shoot me you bastard, you’d be doing me a solid.”

  Monte stepped out cautiously, his pistol leading the way. The goat herder had obviously done some scrubbing, but scrubbing could only do so much. The walls and floors were black where the blood had been spilled. Most of the pools stretched from one side of the hall to the other. He followed the carnage to the first door on the left. Most of the back wall was missing, along with the window. Sunlight spiraled into the room through countless bullet holes. The bed had been hollowed out and scorched black by gunfire. His men had gone down swinging, that much was obvious.

  He found Ezra in the last room on the right, a blanket bunched up around his waist. He seemed to be drifting in and out of sleep. He had deep black rings beneath his eyes and his cheeks were void of color.

  “You’re not looking too good, old man.”

  “I’ve seen better days. I heard all the shooting, you kill my boy?”

  “No, he’s still breathing.”

  “Good, I can hardly move my ass out of bed, I need the little bastard; this whole place has just gone to shit.”

  “Yeah, I noticed one of your rooms is draftier than the last time I was here.”

  “You got an eye for detail. What the hell do you want?”

  “What do I want?” Monte wrapped his fingers around one of the old man’s big toes and twisted a yelp out of him. “My men and my coin would be a good start. But since my men are fertilizer, and I’m sure you’ve pickled yourself with my coin, I guess we’re gonna have to settle on something else.” He applied a final twist before releasing.

  Sweat broke out on Ezra’s forehead. “Yeah, okay, name it, you brutal bastard, name it.”

  “The cunt and the cowboy, what do y
ou know?”

  “She’s Union, he’s not. That I know for sure.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been around a lot longer than you, when I know, I know.”

  “Alright, you bitter old bastard, just tell me about them.”

  “Like I said, she’s Union, through and through. She’s clean and vacant, just like the rest of them. But she’s timid, she’s fresh. It was him that was doing all the talking, all the fighting, destroying my place. It was him that did this to me.”

  Monte picked up the blanket and had a look at his legs. “Yeah, he got over on you pretty good.”

  “No shit,” he yanked the blankets back down.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Big bastard, he was a big bastard. Tall. Built like a bull. He was dirty too, lived in, had long hair, face was all bearded up. That’s how I know he was an Outlander; Union don’t come built like that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, what else?”

  “He had a scar on his face, ran from here to here.” He traced a line with his finger, from his temple down to his jawbone. “He had a tattoo around his neck, went down to the middle of his chest. He had—”

  “What did you just say?”

  “What part, I said a lot?”

  “The tattoo, you withered prick. What about the tattoo?”

  “It was a tattoo, a big one, like a necklace.”

  “Be specific! Give me details or I’ll break your legs again!”

  “He, uh, he, uh, the tattoo, yeah, it was like an anchor… yeah, it looked like some sort of anchor.”

  Monte lifted his shirt. “Like this one?”

  Ezra sat up, wagging a finger, angry recognition lining his face. “That’s the exact same one! Ya’ll in cahoots? Ya’ll working me over?”

  Monte kicked the bed, turned, and stormed out of the room. He was down the hallway and at the mouth of the staircase in a few nimble strides. “Boys, let’s go. Leave the brat.” He took the stairs two at a time. His men were at his back by the time he made it to the porch. Eugene was up on his knees, trying to put his face back together with little success; the fat, fleshy pieces kept slipping between his fingers.

  “What’d you find out boss?”

  “I know who did this to us.”

  “Who?”

  “I served with the bastard.”

  “You mean… he was a Saboteur? Thought you said you was the last one left? What’s he still doing alive and why is he working with the Union?”

  “That’s what I intend to ask him, right before I put a bullet in his head.”

  15

  Dawn was beginning to bloom behind the hills of shimmering sand and the mountains of detritus left over from the old world. Dominic was propped back against a rust covered car door, sticking up from the sand like the wing of some ancient metal bird. Lerah sat in front of him on a section of crumbling asphalt, occasionally peering over her shoulder at the creeping sunlight as if it were some encroaching enemy. “This is going to sting.” It wasn’t a warning, just a casual slice of information she served up before pressing the alcohol soaked pad against the laceration on his chest.

  Dominic gritted his teeth against the burn and rammed the back of his head against the rusted metal. “That hurts!”

  “Well if these get infected and you take a fever it’s gonna hurt a lot worse.”

  “I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten, and blown up. I doubt a window will be the end of me.”

  “Not you I’m worried about.” She planted the pad against the next tear in his skin and he recoiled against the cold jab of the alcohol. “That one might need stitches.” The opening in his flesh she was referring to rested just below his navel. It seeped a steady trail of fluid that had stained his pants. He was starting to look like he’d pissed himself red. Every time he moved, the fleshy chasm would yawn, and the trickle would turn into a pregnant river of serum and plasma. “You see that yellowish color? That’s fat. We’ve got to sew it up.” She wasn’t asking permission. She set the alcohol pad down and started digging through one of the bags.

  “There better be a bottle of whiskey in there.”

  “What? Big bad gun for hire can’t handle a little needle?”

  “Little needle?”

  “Oh, please, it’s not that bad.”

  “Have you ever been sewn up by one of those things, absent anesthetic?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, I try not to make a habit of getting shot and stabbed.”

  “If I hadn’t gone out that window we’d both be dead right now.”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps we would.”

  “You know, a thank-you wouldn’t kill you.”

  “A thank-you? For what?” She sounded genuinely mystified by the prospect.

  “Saving your life, perhaps?”

  “I seem to remember saving yours as well. Debt is paid.”

  “The kid with the goats? He wasn’t going to shoot me.”

  She found the aid kit and produced a vicious looking hook; a line of white thread was already conveniently spooled through the eye.

  “You’re out of your mind if you think you’re sticking me with that thing.”

  “I can leave you here and let you bleed out. You’re not going anywhere opened up like that.” She spun the needle between her fingers, catching the sun and tossing it into his eyes in quick silver bursts.

  “You ever used one of those things?”

  “I was trained in battlefield medicine.”

  “On a human?”

  “Pig flesh.”

  “Oh, yeah… that’s just… that’s great, pig flesh, you’re ready to save lives.”

  She dropped her hands into her lap, the thread trailing behind the needle, coming to rest across the side of her thigh. “Do you want to bleed out?”

  The sun was above the horizon now. Soon it would be overhead, pummeling away at them with fistfuls of fire. “Just do it already.”

  She grabbed the two flaps of swollen flesh on either side of the wound, pinched them together, and plunged the needle in.

  “Argh, that hurts! Can you slow down? Give me a chance to catch my breath?”

  “For someone that can’t catch their breath you sure are bitching a lot. Besides, if I slow down, it’ll just hurt worse.” She was giving a hard pull at the top of each stitch, like someone lacing up a pair of shoes. She was preparing to go in for round three. “As many scars as you’ve got, I figured you’d be used to the needle and thread.”

  “We’ve got our own ways of handling injury in the Wastes.”

  “Such as?”

  “Dirt, grass, shit like that; pack it in good and tight, stops the bleeding. The needles you find out here, you wouldn’t want them digging into your flesh.”

  She finished her third loop and pulled it tight. “That explains why these other scars are so damned ugly.”

  “We used what we had. You do what you gotta do to survive.”

  She nodded. “That you do, and you hope that someone comes along and offers you better options at some point.”

  He laughed, despite the pain. “I see what you did there.”

  There was a small pop as she got the next stitch moving. The blood was really flowing now.

  “So, you got any scars worth talking about?”

  She had her tongue pinched between her teeth, leaning in close to him, trying to keep the needle and thread in focus beneath the spurts of blood and the chunks of loose flesh. “I’ve got a small one on my left shoulder blade. I slipped on an obstacle course run during basic. I got hung up on the top of some chain link fence as I came down; bled like crazy.”

  “Shit, you really are green.” Pain spiked through his body. “Ouch, shit!”

  She was looking at him over the tops of her eyelids. “Did you forget I’ve got the needle?”

  “Trust me, I didn’t forget. But why you? I’m sure Hause had veterans from the war at his disposal; hard fighting men that he could have sent out with me.”

&nb
sp; “I’m Shadeux, remember?”

  “Yes, the elite, the best unit under his command, modeled after the Saboteurs. How could I forget? Are all Shadeux complete virgins on the field of battle?”

  She stopped the stitch right in the middle of the down swing; the needle now bridged the gap between the two flaps of flesh. “What was that?”

  “No, no, no,” he leaned forward, his hands hovering over hers, desperate to dissuade her from inflicting any further pain, “I’m not trying to insult you. I guess I worded myself wrong. I’m just asking… shit, what’s the word I’m looking for? Recruits! Yes, that’s it! Are all Shadeux new recruits?”

  Stitch. Tug. Stitch. Tug. “Two more should do it up.”

  “Oh, come on, talk to me. You’re sitting here stabbing me with a giant metal hook, give me something.”

  She shook her head. “You’re such a pussy.” She used the alcohol swab to push away some of the blood before starting her next stitch. “The Shadeux are mostly veterans, men from the war. I’m the only woman. I’m also the only one that was brought in fresh.”

  “Why you?”

  “The short answer? My father. I scored well during training, stuck with the best of them. But like you said, I’ve got no field experience.”

  “Hause and your father are close, I take it?”

  “Close enough, yes. My father was a big hero during the war; one of Hause’s top commanders, before he became Defense Minister. I grew up with Hause sitting at our dinner table. He always told my father that he saw something in me. Like I said before, I’ve been groomed for the military since I could walk. My father pulled a few strings and got me accepted as a Shadeux. He pulled a few more and here I am with you.”

  “Your mother, what’s her take on all this?”

  “She died. I was very young. I barely remember her.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I guess I should be flattered, receiving condolences from a man that killed his father.”

  Dominic crossed his arms, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He was beginning to find comfort in the ever present pain. “Nah, that’s just some shit I say.”