American Apocalypse Wastelands (45 page)

The remaining two stood where I expected them to be: one, wearing armor, in front of me; the other, to my left. The one to my left fired a three-round burst about a step behind me. I shortened the guy in front of me with a shotgun blast to the knees. The one on my left was turning to shoot me when Max came through the door and greeted him with a round from Mr. Barrett's can opener.

Shelli came out next and stumbled over the man I had knocked down. She landed hard on the asphalt.

Night shot the guy in the head, stepped daintily over him, and delivered a head shot to the one I had kneecapped.

I heard her think,
Die, asshole
, followed by a guttural,
My town
. I felt a wave of ice emanate from her.
God, she is hot
, I thought.

Yep
, came back her reply.

Shelli was back on her feet because Max, who was covering our backs, yanked her up by her drag handle. She looked pissed. We were out and moving.

“I cannot hold this connection to all of you for much longer. I am not accustomed to this many.” The image we got showed that
many
meant the mass of people. “I will give Max the aerial. See you.”
Blink
, she was gone.

I tested it to make sure. “Night, have you ever noticed Shelli's waitress has a great ass?” No reply. She was gone.

At a trot, we moved in an arc away from the diner, which was packed with people. As soon as we swung away from the back of the station we formed a rough diamond with Shelli in the center. I had no idea what her level of competency with a weapon was. Since the revolver Max gave her was still in its holster, it was probably minimal.

We ran into people right away. They moved for us, especially after Max didn't stop and we went right over the top of a middle-aged man who thought we would go around him.

The air smelled of smoke and insanity. I don't know about the rest, but I had made the decision that anyone who pointed anything resembling a weapon in my direction was dead. We cut through that mass of people like a knife through yogurt.

I remember glimpses. A white woman—my mind automatically tagged her “Zone, upper class”—crying and yelling, “Mike! Mike!” A family of five running past us, their hands filled with bags from the food bank; one of the bags ripping and spewing green beans all over the street. They stopped to try and gather them—a stupid mistake. I didn't look back to see what happened, but I heard someone growl as he changed course to focus on the family.

Most of the people were minimally armed. Not all were. I caught a glimpse of a father-son team clearing a
path through the food bank crowd by hosing the people in front of them with AK look-alike rifles. Hopefully they would both run out of ammo at the same time.

We encountered two groups of people who actually looked competent and were armored up. We moved past them with Max slowing down to let Night ahead of him. That put all four of us, with Shelli on my other side, in a row, with clear lines of sight. We didn't drop our weapons, but we didn't point directly at them. They did the same.

As we moved I imagined us as warships from the age of sailing. We were escorting a merchant vessel, one that was having problems keeping up with us. Shelli was starting to suck wind. We would change formation into a line of battle, then drop back into coverage and cruise.

As we cleared the last few houses, we surprised a young girl on her knees. In one hand she clutched a can of baked beans; in the other, the cock of a guy in armor who was standing over her. He smiled at us, giving us a thumbs-up as we pounded past him.

Night shot him in the head. I was going to have to start calling her “My little headhunter.”

We made it where we supposed to be. Shelli had to stop along the way to throw up, but she had stuck with it. I think Max would have left her if it had come down to it, and I think at some level she knew that, too.

Freya was waiting exactly where she said she would be. We stopped. Shelli collapsed. Without even thinking, the rest of us took the same alert positions that Max had taught us on the hike here so long ago.

CHAPTER FIFTY

The woods were relatively free of people, probably for a number of reasons. First of all, Zone people were not woods people. The woods were scary to them—a place to get lost, a place where bears, snakes, and maybe even worse monsters dwelt.

These people also were just not equipped for the woods. They were urban dwellers looking for a civilized place to retreat to: a place where you could take a crap and flush afterward, a place where you had walls, kitchens, and restaurants. If they went camping, it had to be on a level site they could park next to.

They were me back when I first became homeless, and I knew firsthand what an adjustment that was. Not even living as one of the Car People prepared you for what was coming.

From where we sat on the side of the hill we could see the town below. It looked like a big outdoor concert combined with a riot—or maybe a small civil war.

It was like peering down one of Dante's circles of Hell, the only difference being that some of the people down
there seemed to be enjoying themselves. My guess was they would soon devolve into demons, or maybe really irritating and deadly imps.

Shelli was crying softly. Max was scanning the town with field glasses.

“Max, why are you using glasses?” I asked. “Is the bird down?”

“Yep.”

I looked over at Freya. She looked pale. “You okay, kid?”

“I am fine. I just need to rest a bit.”

Ninja was looking at her puzzled. He asked softly, even a bit hesitantly, “How do you do that? Is it magic?”

She sighed. “I do it because I am a goddess. It would help me greatly if all of you started believing that. I need the energy your belief creates. Magic? You ask if that was magic? Your grandfathers walked on the moon! Start believing in me, get me some followers, and I will show you some magic.”

“Oh . . . okay,” he replied. Then he started checking his weapons. Max had taught us well.

“Nice shooting,” I told Night and gave her leg a squeeze. Then I stood up and walked over to the packs. I pulled off the camo cover and stepped back. “How do we know which one is which? Oh, by the way, next time get Ninja a Hello Kitty backpack. He loves them.”

“There will be no next time,” Max said. “Next time we train warriors, not cops. Next time we will be the ones burning the towns.”

I shrugged. “Sounds good to me.” I was distracted. My nose had caught a faint but familiar smell coming from the packs. I walked next to them, sniffing, and stopped at the last one.

“That one is mine!” Freya yelled.

“Gee, Freya. What did you pack?” I bent over and opened the pack as she yelled, “Stop.”

“Damn, Freya. You have at least six apple pies in here.” Shelli's mouth dropped open.

“I was going to share,” she said sullenly.

“Sure you were. If you're a goddess, then you're as American as apple pie.”

No one laughed and Night threw an acorn at me.

 

The leaves were gone from most of the trees. A few shallow traces of snow remained in the shadows. I passed out water to everyone. There was more than we needed as Freya had packed water also. The rest I left behind with the pack I had used to bring it here.

Maybe the girl with the can of baked beans clutched in her hand would make it this way and find it. Probably not.

We walked in silence and headed cross-country, a diamond with Shelli and Freya in the middle. I watched Max stuff Shelli's water in his pack. That, the Barrett, and the rest of his stuff meant that he was packing a heavy load.

It didn't seem to bother him. I watched Night. It had been a while since she had shouldered a load, but she was doing alright.

It was a cold night for everyone. Freya had packed a blanket in each pack, but we didn't have anything waterproof to put underneath ourselves, and we were not going to build a fire. Freya politely refused a blanket. She told us the cold never bothered her.

Off in the distance we heard gunshots. My guess was they were coming from the road, which we were paralleling at a distance. A lot of pain was happening out there.

I hoped Freya knew what she was doing. Otherwise we were going to be joining the ranks of the brigands and brigand wannabes in a matter of days.

I was surprised that I had no desire to become a highwayman. I saw nothing honorable or even enjoyable about it. That didn't mean I wouldn't do it if I had to—not a good mindset when everything depended on that extra edge that the right attitude helped generate.

Max had said earlier that from now on we were to be warriors instead of cops. I didn't know how I felt about that. I had saved my badge. No real reason, I just had.

We were a glum bunch, Night especially. She had lost our baby, her home, and all the work she had done. Shelli was pretty quiet, too. So was I.

I was never comfortable living without some kind of goal or reason, and I was having trouble thinking of one for the current situation. Survival was an obvious goal, but I needed more. Without Night it would have been a lot worse.

 

Two days later we were there. We waited until nightfall to cover the last mile, so there would be less chance of being seen. We had the night-vision goggles. We tried moving in the dark with them, but Shelli and Night both had trouble adjusting to them. It was not worth the very real possibility that one of them would fall and get hurt. Freya did not seem to need them. I didn't wear them either.

The Bruxton where Max and I had found Freya no longer existed. What remained looked like a war zone. Where the train tracks had run into the mine, nothing was left. Now there was only rubble where the side of the mountain had collapsed from the air strike. There were a few skeletons of
buildings, mostly just a wall or two from the houses closest to the road. The rest was craters and debris.

We weren't going in the main shaft entrance. We headed to a spot partly shielded by a rock outcropping, at least a mile from the main entrance. Our way in was a plain steel door painted to match the rock set back in a shallow cave. Freya walked up to it and casually pushed it open.

The wind had blown leaves into the cave and piled them up against the door. She absentmindedly kicked them out of the way and said, “I set a ward.” I don't know what the others thought, but I thought that certainly explained everything.

“Wait.” This was from Max. “Why here? What is here?”

Freya seemed surprised. I guess a goddess isn't used to explaining herself. “I was kept here. This is how I left. None of them knew of it.”

“Why were you kept here, Freya?”

“Because this is where the Burners were going to stage their coup against the king in D.C. They had soldier people helping them.”

“Yes. But why were
you
here?” Max's voice had gone soft and gentle. She was going to literally lose her head if she didn't come up with an answer soon.

“Because my mother was a Burner.”

She turned and walked through the door. Over her shoulder she said, “All the soldiers are dead from what they shot in the tunnel before the death eggs fell. They left much good stuff. Come. You will be happy.”

She walked into the dark. I looked at the rest of them, shrugged, and followed. Ninja was the last one through.

The door shut itself.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The introduction of Freya, a supernatural being, may have confused or even bothered some readers. I feel she is an important element to the ongoing story because she represents the beginning of a new world. This isn't and was never intended to be a survival book. Rather, I am writing about the end of one civilization and the birth of another. I believe if we were really to encounter a complete breakdown of society, it is entirely possible that something brand new and unforeseen would develop.

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