The Day After Never - Retribution (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 4) (6 page)

Sierra brushed past him to get Eve, planting a peck on his cheek as she did, and he went to check the closets for a suitable tarp or blanket with which he could dispose of the bones. Not finding anything, he made his way into the garage and spotted a metal trunk near the front bumper of an ancient Buick sedan resting on flat tires. He opened the trunk and dumped out the collection of automotive waxes and fluids before carrying it back into the house.

It took several minutes to fit the skeleton into the trunk. When he was done, Lucas scowled at the black stain on the back of the chair and hoisted the container, barely heavier than when it was empty, and headed to the front porch, secure that Sierra and Eve were exploring the kitchen, judging by their giggles.

He would bury the body later. For now, he wanted to agree with Sierra that this would be their place and stake a claim so there was no confusion with any of the others, and fetch Tango and Nugget so they could munch on the vegetation that was threatening to overtake the huge backyard.

The thought stopped him.
Their place
.

Lucas hadn’t questioned that they would get one together. After a week in each other’s company following the battle, they’d relaxed into an easy companionship, the only friction between them being the matter of her son. He’d forgiven her for sneaking away – he understood her reasoning, even if he didn’t agree with it, and believed that she was being genuine with him. Her affection for him was more than obvious, and their time together had planted a seed of hope for a future he now believed was more than an impossibility.

“Sierra?” he called.

“Yes?”

“So what do you think?”

“Are you done?”

“Mostly.”

She poked her head from the kitchen doorway. “So it’s safe to look at the rest of the house?”

“Have at it.”

Sierra returned a few minutes later, her face serious. “Going to need to clean the master some.”

“I was thinking of tossing that chair.”

“Probably a good idea. I’m not going to ask.”

“That’s best,” he agreed.

“Which room is mine?” Eve chimed in.

“Either of the smaller ones you want,” Sierra said.

“The one facing the backyard!”

Lucas nodded solemnly. “Good choice.”

“So this is really home?” Eve’s face glowed.

Sierra smiled. “For now.”

The little girl’s ebullience faded, but only a little. “Let’s get Tango!”

Lucas adjusted his hat. “You read my mind.”

She gave him one of her oddly penetrating looks and grinned. “I know.”

Eve skipped away before he could say anything, making for the entrance. Sierra took his hand again and pulled him closer. “It’s perfect. Except for the chair.”

He looked into her eyes, and he felt dizzy for a moment – probably the fatigue finally hitting.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Her expression grew serious. “How long are we going to stay?”

They’d discussed Sierra’s desire to search for her son, and Lucas had reluctantly agreed to help – but only once they’d gotten Eve settled and fulfilled their commitments to participate in creating a new sanctuary to ultimately call home. Obviously, any hope that Lucas had that she’d cut him some slack had been misguided.

“At least until they have the vaccine. Elliot made me promise that.”

She stepped away from him, her face rigid. “What? We don’t know how long that’s going to take. You already promised me you would find my boy.”

“Sierra, they need us here for now. Once they begin distributing the vaccine, we can take some south with us, to Texas or wherever, and kill two birds with one stone.”

“I never agreed to that.”

“Because you want to just take off. But it’s better to plan things,” he cautioned. “That way we’ll have safety in numbers, and we’ll have helped Elliot, which means we can come back and be welcomed with open arms.”

“I don’t care about helping him.”

“Right. Because you’re thinking short term. But let’s say we find your son. Then what? Where do you take him? Where do you live? And what about Eve? Do you try your luck on the road? How’s that worked for you so far?”

Sierra didn’t have an answer but was clearly upset. “It just feels like time’s slipping away, Lucas. My boy’s out there somewhere, and every day here is one more with him I’ll never get back. I…we need to do something. I have this terrible feeling we’re going to be too late.”

Lucas took her in his arms. “Please. Let’s do this my way. I’ll help, but only once we aren’t needed here.”

“You have a ton of gold. You’re rich now. You could make a home anywhere. We don’t need them.”

“Gold has nothing to do with it. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder every day, waiting for the next band of scavengers to come over the hill. There’s safety in numbers, Sierra, and Elliot has a good thing going. Power. Water. Meds. Where else are we going to find that?”

She shook her head and asked the question again. “How long are we going to stay?”

“As long as it takes.”

She looked away. “Fine. But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

Lucas sighed and released her. “I don’t. But I’ll keep my promise. Which means you need to keep yours. No going off half-cocked on your own, remember?”

She walked toward the door. “I do. Make sure you remember yours, too. I won’t wait forever, Lucas. Not for you, or anyone.”

And then she was gone, leaving tension and anxiety in her wake. Lucas chewed his lower lip and followed her out, silently reminding himself that Sierra believed her son to be alive, whereas he doubted it, so their priorities were different. He wasn’t eager to risk it all going into the heart of enemy territory on a wild-goose chase, but she would do anything to find her son, even if it meant her own destruction.

He understood.

He also wasn’t looking forward to the next few weeks as she turned the pressure up on him. Which she would, he was sure. He knew her that well by now and could expect to be reminded of his commitment on a daily basis.

“Well, nobody’s holding a gun to your head,” he muttered under his breath, and then stepped onto the front porch, from where he could see Sierra already walking with Eve back toward the vehicles, leaving him to hurry to catch up.

Chapter 8

Dale stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene at the bridge over the Rio Grande. The Crew’s abandoned vehicles, already stripped by scavengers, clogged the road, and Los Alamos shimmered in the distance halfway up the side of the mountains to the west. The surviving Crew fighters were grouped around him, and Manuel, one of the ranking lieutenants, pointed with his bandaged arm at a spot near the bridge.

“There were two more Humvees. They’re gone now. As are at least a couple of the buses and horse trailers,” he said.

Dale nodded wordlessly, taking in the destroyed vehicles. Manuel had told him about the retreat from the canyon and the pitched battle with the remainder of Magnus’s guard detail against dozens of fighters who’d appeared out of nowhere. One of the guards had heard the grenade blast that had killed their leader, and had slipped away to confirm that the worst had happened before rejoining the fight. Dale had questioned Manuel several times, but his story never varied.

“Where did the guard say Magnus died?”

“Back along the river, near a ravine. He said there wasn’t a lot left of him.”

“Let’s take a look. The rest of you, stay here,” Dale ordered, and the dozen men nodded agreement.

Dale and Manuel made their way south along the bank, stopping periodically to study the terrain. When they reached a gulley, Manuel gestured at the hill beyond it. “This looks right.”

“Come on.”

Dale traversed the ridge at the top of the gulch, eyes searching the ground. He stopped several hundred yards up the rise – part of a scapula lay in the dirt, picked clean by insects and carrion birds. He knelt by the bone and stared at it for a long moment, and then continued more cautiously, scanning his surroundings with the thoroughness of a minesweeper.

Part of a skull rested against a boulder, like an ossified chalice set by the rock to catch the rain. Dale turned to Manuel with a nod. “This looks like the place, all right. See if you can spot where the grenade went off.”

Three minutes later they were standing by a depression created by the blast, clearly the epicenter of the shower of fragments they’d located – a femur, most of a boot, a skeletal hand. Dale walked the area and, when he had satisfied his curiosity, returned to where Manuel was waiting. “Might as well go back. If that was Magnus, he’s definitely gone now.”

They set up camp by the river, the approaching dusk making it impractical to try to navigate the canyon until morning. After an anxious night where few of the men slept, Dale and Manuel led them up the grade to Los Alamos, retracing the Crew’s steps toward the canyon that was the final resting place of their army. The area was silent other than the clomp of the horses’ hooves against the shale wash and the soft whistle of wind through the poplar trees that lined the crest.

The column picked along the avalanche area and worked its way at a crawl past the minefields, scorch marks and blast debris signaling where Bouncing Betties had detonated – not that there could be any doubt, given the skeletons strewn in telltale patterns. The ebony form of a crow lifted into the air and flapped above them, protesting with a cry the disruption of its solitude.

Manuel slowed as they neared the final narrowing of the canyon and indicated a trail at the end that led up to the top. “This is as far as we got. It was carnage – they had a Browning up there and pinned us down all through this stretch. Then they flanked us, and that was the beginning of the end,” he said, his voice a whisper, as though recalling the moment like it had just taken place.

Dale nodded and gave his horse a pat on the neck, which was damp with sweat. “Might as well head up there and see what all the fuss was about. I think it’s fairly safe to say nobody’s left – the missing vehicles don’t leave much mystery about that.”

“You sure?” Manuel asked, doubt in his voice.

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” Dale said, and spurred his horse forward.

The others followed, rifles in hand. The sloping trail was difficult to negotiate, narrow in spots, but after an hour of painstaking progress they reached the summit and stared down into the valley. Dale raised a pair of binoculars and surveyed the structures in the distance, and then lowered them with a grunt.

“Anything?” Manuel asked.

“Deader than Magnus,” Dale said, and flicked the reins. His horse edged forward on the downhill grade, the tall grass of the valley an inviting carpet of verdant bounty before them.

Evidence of the relentless shelling was everywhere, but already the mounds of earth thrown clear of the shell craters were covered with green shoots, the cavities filled with rainwater from recent showers. They rode toward the structures at a trot, following the creek until they drew near.

Dale slowed as he approached the buildings and stopped a few hundred yards away. He swung down from the saddle and crossed the remaining distance on foot, his stride confident and measured, and his men followed. Once at the entry to the largest structure, he paused, listening, and shook his head.

“They’re gone. Like we figured. Packed up and hit the road. Nobody here but ghosts now.” He hesitated. “Let’s look around and see if we missed anything. I doubt they could carry everything. Might pick up some clues as to how many of them made it or where they went.”

Dale led them into the building, which had been partially destroyed by the shelling, and they worked their way through the rooms, empty except for beds and simple furniture. When they finished with the buildings, they entered the subterranean area the Apache guide had described, and found themselves in a series of connected vaults, all of them with working overhead lights. The relative miracle of electricity quickly faded when Dale spotted the equipment that had been left behind – presumably because there was no easy way to move it, or no time, or both.

They spent a half hour underground, and when they surfaced, Dale was frowning. “This was much more sophisticated than we thought. We underestimated them. Whoever set this up had serious expertise – which means unless they were killed, they still do.”

Manuel nodded, only understanding part of what Dale had said, but getting the overall gist. “So how do we track them?”

Dale rubbed a hand over his beard stubble and took a deep breath. “We start at the highway. We know they took the vehicles. Someone might have heard them pass or seen them. Once we get a direction, we follow the trail to wherever it leads.”

“What if we don’t find anyone who saw them?”

Dale made for his horse, studying the sky, gauging how long it would take to return to the road. “Then we keep looking until we find the trucks or some evidence of where they went to ground.”

“But we don’t even know which way they went…”

“That’s right, we don’t. But we know where the roads are. So we follow the roads in each direction until it’s obvious they didn’t go that way or we learn something new. But right now the best thing we have to go on is a bunch of big diesel engines, and my bet is that someone will have heard them.”

Manuel turned to one of his men. “That could take forever.”

Dale stilled; when he turned to face Manuel, any semblance of friendliness was gone. “That’s right. It could. Got a problem with that? Someplace you have to be?”

Manuel swallowed hard. “N-no. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You’re lucky I like to work alone. If we don’t trip over them in the first week, it’ll be a marathon, and you boys can run home to Texas.”

Dale glared at the man a final time and stalked off, keenly aware that they’d already lost too much time, the trail was cold, and they needed to make it back through the canyon before it got too dark to negotiate the mined areas safely.

Manuel, his men behind him, hurried to catch up, but if Dale noticed, he didn’t say anything. He was done with them, their usefulness over now that they’d led him to the valley. He didn’t need them, and they wouldn’t be any help in locating his quarry.