American Apocalypse Wastelands

Table of Contents

 

 

 

For Marilyn and Elizabeth

Also by Nova

American Apocalypse: The Collapse Begins

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I don't feel as if I wrote this book alone, as it was written live and online. The people who left comments and suggestions influenced the story line more than they will ever know. Many times the only thing that kept me writing was their kind words. For all of you—thanks!

I would also like to thank Bill McBride at the
Calculated Risk
blog. He was a significant factor in making this book happen. He graciously put up with my comments and snippets of book posts, for which I am ever grateful. Tanta Vive!

CHAPTER ONE

I lay there. On my back in darkness. It wasn't very comfortable and I hurt. I am not fond of pain. But I'm no stranger to it. My ears were ringing and my thigh didn't feel right. I was tired. Very tired. The pain in my thigh almost had me worried. I wanted to check and see if I still had my balls; I just didn't have the energy to move my arm to do it. It was easier just to lie there.

I thought about opening my eyes. Instead I decided to keep them shut and live with the pain; the pain was the only thing keeping me tethered to my body. Once it began to ebb, and I knew it would, then I could float away. That would be fun. I imagined myself rising into the sky like a bird until I got enough altitude that I could practice soaring and swooping. The pain was beginning to recede and I knew it would be only a matter of minutes before I could let go.

Then I processed what I was hearing. Someone was yelling, “Max! Gardener! Night!” over and over. I recognized the voice. I recognized those names. I just wasn't able to connect them to the pain.

The voice though—that I knew. It was pulling me back from being able to fly. I so wanted to fly, but I wanted even more to respond to her. I always had, one way or another. I tried calling out to her. It was hard to form words. I did it anyway and with it came the memory of why I was laying here.

Night! Where was she?
Fucking assholes and their fucking flying machines
, I thought.

Get pissed
, I told myself. Strength can be found in anger and I needed it. I had to get up. Hell, I had to start by opening my eyes. I didn't want to but what I wanted and what reality provided seldom matched.

Much closer now I heard Carol say, “Gardener!” Then she was next to me. Kneeling and leaning over, she told me, “It's going to be okay.”

I felt her hand brush my cheek. I flared my nostrils and took a deep breath. I wanted to inhale her smell right into my soul. I heard her say, “Jake is going to take care of you.” Then she was gone.

Who the hell is Jake?
My eyes popped open. Some guy that looked vaguely familiar had taken her spot and was reaching into a bag next to him while telling me, “Whoa, buddy. You're hurt. Let me take a look at you and . . .”

Fuck this
, I thought. I started to get up. Medic Man put his hand on my chest and pushed. I went back down, not that I had managed to move a lot. I was beginning to dislike this guy.

“Where's Night?” I asked him.

“Look. You're messed up. Stay put and let me look at you.”

“Fuck you. Where's Night and where's Max?”

I looked over to where Carol had rolled someone over. Max. It looked as if he was breathing, but the right side of his face was a mess. I could see a wicked gash on his cheek, below the eye. I thought,
That is going to make a really cool scar.

Carol knelt over him. For a second my heart hurt worse than anything I had felt so far today. I heard her tell the asshole next to me, “Take care of him first.” I saw the plea in her eyes.

The guy grabbed his bag and told me to stay put. I watched him hustle over to Carol and listened as he said, “Okay, Max, I'm going to stop the bleeding. Then I'm going to see if you are hurt anywhere else.”

Well, fuck it
, I thought. I never had her anyway. But I did have Night, who, I realized to my surprise, owned as big a piece of my heart as Carol did, maybe bigger.

I sat up. Damn, my thigh hurt. I looked down and saw a chunk of wood sticking out from it.
Well, that sucks
. This wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. I rolled on my side, drew my legs in, and pushed myself up with my arms. I thought I was going to faint from the wave of pain that hit me. Oh yes, this feels familiar. I sucked some wind, moved my good leg, and used it to push myself upright. I almost made it.

I said earlier that I knew pain. Well, now I knew him even better. I waited until the light show inside my head stopped. I shook my head, hoping that would clear it, and looked around. I needed a Plan B.

Plan B turned out to be something long, black, and tubelike that Medic Man had left next to me. I grabbed it, pulled it close, and tried again to get up. This time
it worked. Whatever the hell it was that I was using as an extra leg and cane was heavy. It also looked vaguely familiar. But the pain and the need to move overrode any ability I had to focus.

I started moving toward the motel, where I thought Night was. It had been hit and was really starting to burn. I was going to have to work my way around that. At least it produced a lot of light.

Behind me I heard Medic Man yell, “Hey!” I didn't stop. Damn, it hurt to walk. I heard Carol tell him something ; she said it too low for me to hear. I did hear his reply. “He better not lose my fucking Barrett.” That was interesting: a medic running around with a sniper rifle. The world never ceased to amaze me.

 

The Anchorage Motel was laid out like an
L
. The short side of the
L
held the main lobby and check-in. They sat inside a two-story great room built to resemble the prow of a ship. The back part of the second story contained living quarters for Night's parents.

The face of the motel nearest the road was almost all glass, and a large ship's wheel hung inside, suspended from the roof and filling the airspace of the great room. The wheel was what finally tipped me off that the motel was not named after Anchorage, Alaska. I'd been embarrassed by how long that had taken to click in my head. I wouldn't have to worry about it now, though; that part of the motel had taken a direct hit.

If I were a good person, I would have worried about Night's parents and whoever else might have been in there. I'm not, though, so I didn't. Instead I kept going.

Night lived near the far end of the
L
. Normally I could have walked to it in under a minute. Tonight it felt like an eternity just to make it around the main part of the structure. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to kick in any doors to find her, or move anything that weighed more than a few pounds.

I got lucky. I found her crumpled in a tiny heap. She was lying outside the door, off the sidewalk, in the grass. Not far from her room. It hurt me to see how small she looked lying there. Even worse was to see that she was hurt. Hurt badly.

The back of her head had been hit and burned by a chunk of debris. Her hair was still smoldering. I knelt down next to her and gathered what remained of her hair in the back and squeezed it in my fist. With the pain in my leg, it should have hurt to bend down but it didn't.

The skin on the back of her neck and one shoulder was burnt. It was not pretty. Plus, her back and both legs were bleeding in places. She moaned.

I told her, “Hey. It's okay.” I tried to think of something calming and reassuring to say, but I didn't have anything stored away.

She rolled over, let out a moan, looked up at me, and said, “I knew you would come.”

What could I say to that?

I smiled and told her, “We got to get out of here. I need you to stand up. Can you do that?”

She moaned, nodded, and began pushing herself up. I tried to help her. I wasn't much use. She gasped a bit when she saw Mr. Woodie sticking out of my thigh. “You're hurt.”

“Yep.”

“At first I thought you were happy to see me.”

She smiled when I looked at her with surprise. Well, it may have been a wince, but that was close enough for me.

I was going to reply, probably with something lame that I would regret, when I got a really bad feeling about things.

“C'mon, Night, we got to move.” I had my arm around her waist, partly to steady myself, mostly because I wanted to. I pulled away as we came around the corner. “Night, I need you to back up and go lie down on the other side of that hill. Now.”

She didn't argue. She just went, which was good because the helo was back, looking like a black dragon out of
The Lord of the Rings
. It had come from behind us—fast and low, with no lights—and for a second I thought it was going to keep going. I didn't really believe it, though.

Well, this is fucked
, I thought. It kept going, but not far enough. It went out about a half mile, made a U-turn, and came back toward us.

I knew Max and Carol were out front. I could see them huddled near some shrubbery that was not going to keep them safe from Sauron's minion. Shit, it wouldn't protect them from an angry crow.

I knew what I had to do. I wasn't sure if I could, but that had never stopped me before. I gritted my teeth and headed up the hill that Night was behind.

It really barely counted as a hill. It was more of a berm, added to stabilize the area where the motel had been built, after part of the original landscape had been cut away to build a Jiffy Lube. Hill or berm—I needed the extra height to get a clear shot.

The pain was back. “Use the pain. Use the pain,” I muttered to myself. Use the fireball of pain that was exploding inside of me. Feed the fire.