Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands
Out of the Badlands
a novel
Brian J. Jarrett
Copyright © 2016 Brian J. Jarrett
Elegy Publishing, LLC
St. Louis, MO
Original cover image by Ryan Stevenson, Dreamstime.com
All rights reserved by the author. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted by any means without the written consent of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, people, locales, or events are purely a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to any person (either living or dead), to any event, or to any locale is coincidental or used fictitiously.
Copy editing and proofreading by Sandi Powell.
2016.OOTB.1.1
Dedicated to Allyson Robben Dowell
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Twelve year old Sam Treiber watched the big oak fall as a jagged arc of white-hot lightning tore a hole in the sky, illuminating the land below. The tree lurched, the undersides of its leaves flashing white as its massive bulk came roaring down to the ground, felled by a wind gust as easily as a first year sapling.
Denise Treiber looked up from her tattered and yellowed copy of ‘
Salem’s Lot
. “What the hell was that?”
“A tree just fell outside,” Sam said, turning away from the scene outside the window. “A big one.”
“This is a hell of a storm,” Denise replied. She relaxed, her eyes back on the book. “Bound to take down some trees.”
“I think it hit the fence,” Sam said, turning to look at his mother.
Eyes wide, Denise looked up at her son. She closed the book without saving her place and swallowed hard. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“You need to be
damn
sure.” She got to her feet and went to the window, gazing into the blackness. Another bolt of lightning arced, lighting up the landscape like the flash from a giant camera. Just as Sam described, the tree lay across a section of ruined fence.
“Shit,” Denise said, walking toward the door of the room they shared. “We need to tell the others. Get your shoes on.”
Sam sat, his eyes wide.
“Come! Now!”
Sam leapt to his feet. Outside, the lightning struck again, brightening the yard in a blinding flash of light. Sam caught sight of the gigantic tree’s bushy top. Three figures appeared through the leaves, their white skin nearly reflective in the brightness. Then the light vanished, replaced by inky darkness.
Sam rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the spots in his vision. He stared again, but could see nothing in the dark.
Those weren’t carriers
, he thought.
They weren’t people either.
They were something else.
“Mom…” he began.
“Let’s go, Sam!” his mother called.
Sam ran to the nightstand beside the room’s only bed and yanked open the top drawer, fumbling through the contents inside.
“Sam!”
“Just a sec,” he replied. A moment more of searching and he found was he was looking for. He retrieved the one possession he prized more than anything else: his camera. Fed by rechargeable batteries refreshed when the generators were turned on, Sam had been carrying the thing ever since Jonathan, the man who ran the camp and took Sam and his mother in, gave it to him.
“Sam, move your ass!”
Sam gripped the camera and stuffed it into his pocket before picking up the flashlight from the nightstand. He turned to see his mother place her pistol into her back pocket and open the door. He slipped his shoes on and the two of them bolted down the hall, flashlight in hand, the forgotten candle casting a pale yellow glow inside the empty room.
They met Jonathan halfway to the cafeteria of the old school, the building’s largest room and their makeshift common area. Already a few familiar faces had begun to gather. Soft, worried murmurs echoed throughout the narrow corridor.
“The fence,” Denise said, catching her breath.
“I know,” Jonathan replied. He carried a rifle on his shoulder and a flashlight that cast a dim, yellow beam into the darkness of the hallway. “Nick and Arkady are on their way. Billy and Dale too.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Nick and Arkady will have to chop through the thing. Billy and Dale will lay down cover, just in case.”
“We’ll need more than Nick and Arkady to get through a tree that size.”
“Don’t worry. We’re all hands on deck with this one.”
“Still, that’s only eleven people, Jonathan. And only two axes among all of us.”
Jonathan shrugged. “It’ll have to do. We haven’t seen any carriers for almost two weeks now. I’m sure it’ll be fine until we get the fence back up and the razor wire restrung.”
Sam considered mentioning what he’d seen earlier outside, but then thought better of it. He was a kid, after all, and the adults were talking. Besides, he wasn’t even sure he’d seen anything at all, lots of wind and rain out there, whipping things around. Combining that with all those lightning flashes could cause a person to see just about anything.
“How can we help?” Denise asked.
Jonathan smiled. “Go back to your room. We’ll take care of this.”
“Sam can help.”
“He’s twelve.”
“Almost thirteen,” Sam added.
“He can help,” Denise insisted.
“If we need him, we’ll come get him,” Jonathan answered.
Denise paused for a moment before nodding. “Fine, but we want to earn our keep around here. We basically just arrived.”
“You’ve been here for two months and you’re earning it just fine,” Jonathan replied. “Go on back to the room and let us handle it. No sense in catching your death out there.” He placed a hand on Denise’s cheek. “Trust me. Everything will be okay.”
Denise closed her eyes gently and nodded.
“See you in a bit,” Jonathan said, turning away and heading down the hallway. Denise watched him until he and his flashlight disappeared from sight.
“You like him, don’t you, Mom?” Sam asked.
Denise hesitated, pulling herself back into focus. “What makes you say that?”
“A hunch.”
“What do you know? You’re just a kid,” Denise said, grinning.
“Maybe.”
“Besides,” she continued. “I don’t have time for boyfriends, even if I wanted one. Which I don’t, by the way.”
“Whatever you say.”
Denise mocked frustration. “Boy, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that mouth—”
Two gunshots echoed throughout the hallway.
Butterflies fluttered in Sam’s stomach. He looked at his mom.
“Those came from inside the building,” Denise said, a growing look of concern on her face.
A moment later a scream followed. Sam recognized the voice immediately.
Jonathan.
The look Sam saw on his mother’s face told him that she also recognized the owner of that scream.
“Mom?” he whispered.
She didn’t reply, but her lips pressed together into a straight line.
Another gunshot.
“Mom?”
Denise’s lower lip quivered.
“Mom!” Sam repeated.
A high-pitched shriek filled the hallway, echoing down the darkened chamber. Sam’s blood ran cold. He’d never heard such a sound before, even from a carrier. His mind raced back to the white figures he’d seen through the window of their room, slipping between the tree branches like pale ghosts.
Maybe they were real after all.
Lightning flashed, temporarily illuminating the entire length of the hallway. In that brief second, Sam saw a half-dozen of the white figures. They were naked, with large, muscled arms and thick tree trunks for legs. Black claws protruded from long, thick fingers like the talons of an ancient velociraptor. Their eyes glowed red with reflected light as they screeched in a horrific chorus, the sound of a thousand fingernails scraping on a gigantic chalkboard.
Then the entire hallway went dark again, blanketing Sam and his mother in suffocating darkness.
“Kill that flashlight,” Denise whispered.
Sam did as he was told. “Mom, did you see those things?”
“I did.” Denise reached into her back pocket, retrieved the 9mm pistol and racked a round into the chamber. “Listen carefully to me,” she said. “We’re going back to our room. We’re going to get our packs and then we’re going to slip out the window.”
“What about the others?”
“They’re gone, Sammy.”
Sam felt his stomach twist into knots. His mother never called him that unless things were bad. Really bad. “Don’t say that.”
“Back to the room,” Denise said.
“What about Chloe?”
“No, Sam.”
“I’m not leaving without her, Mom.”
“We can’t go back for her. We don’t even know if she’s still…” Denise trailed off.
“Don’t say that.”
“Sammy, come with me right now.” Denise’s whispers took on a nervous pitch. “We don’t have time for this!”
Sam paused. The creatures headed toward them…he didn’t know exactly what they were, but he knew they meant death. What he did know was that his mother was right; everyone else who’d been outside was probably dead, even Jonathan. But Chloe would almost definitely be in her room and an easy target for these new threats. Even though he was scared shitless, he knew there was no way he’d ever just walk away and leave her behind.
The lightning sparked again, so close now that Sam could feel a charge in the air, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. The creatures let out inhuman screeches as the light from the electric arc outside flared, illuminating the hallway like a strobe light.