Hero: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 7) Read online

  HERO

  The Traveler Series Book 7

  Tom Abrahams

  A PITON PRESS BOOK

  HERO

  A Traveler Series Story

  © Tom Abrahams 2019. All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by Hristo Kovatliev

  Edited by Felicia A. Sullivan

  Proofread by Pauline Nolet

  Formatted by Stef McDaid at WriteIntoPrint.com

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  http://tomabrahamsbooks.com

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  WORKS BY TOM ABRAHAMS

  THE TRAVELER POST-APOCALYPTIC/DYSTOPIAN SERIES

  HOME

  CANYON

  WALL

  RISING

  BATTLE

  LEGACY

  HERO

  HARBOR

  A DARK WORLD: THE COMPLETE SPACEMAN CHRONICLES

  SPACEMAN

  DESCENT

  RETROGRADE

  THE ALT APOCALYPSE SERIES

  ASH

  LIT

  TORRENT

  AFFLICTION

  PILGRIMAGE: A POST-APOCALYPTIC ADVENTURE

  EXTINCTION RED LINE (COAUTHORED WITH NICHOLAS SANSBURY SMITH)

  POLITICAL CONSPIRACIES

  SEDITION

  INTENTION

  JACKSON QUICK ADVENTURES

  ALLEGIANCE

  ALLEGIANCE BURNED

  HIDDEN ALLEGIANCE

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  AN EXCERPT FROM HARBOR: THE TRAVELER SERIES BOOK EIGHT

  Acknowledgements

  For Courtney, Sam, and Luke

  My heroes

  “Heroism is endurance for one moment more.”

  —George Kennan, American Historian

  PROLOGUE

  MARCH 17, 2054, 9:00 PM

  SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 6 MONTHS

  ONE MILE SOUTH OF THE WALL, NORTH TEXAS REGION

  The lookout whistled. It was clear. Time to make a run for it.

  Andrea Cruz was already out of breath. A sheen of sweat coated her face, matting her long obsidian black hair against her forehead. With one hand, she clutched the underside of her belly, feeling the faint movement of the life growing inside her. With the other, she clutched her son’s wrist. The six-year-old was quiet, not having said anything for the last hour of the grueling trek.

  “I can’t do this,” she said breathlessly to the guide. “We won’t make it. It’s too far.”

  The guide, a man who told her to call him Zorro, shook his head. Even though he whispered, there was anger in his voice. “We go now, or I leave you here.”

  “I paid you,” she said.

  “Not enough,” said Zorro. “Yes or no? Go with me or stay by yourself?”

  Huffing, she cursed the man, wiping her forehead with the back of her arm. “Fine,” she said. “We go.”

  They huddled behind a dark two-story building, on the northern edge of the nameless town, closest to the wall separating Texas from what used to be the United States of America. It was a cloudless night, which wasn’t good for trying to sneak across the wall to freedom.

  The moon was quarter full, and enough of it reflected sunlight to cast a dull white pall across the landscape. Between the edge of the town and the wall there was little but dead fields and the occasional bunkhouse or guard stand.

  “Stay low,” said Zorro. “We’re going to cross this road, and then we find the field. Once we’re in the field, the high grasses will protect us. Stay low.”

  “Bueno,” she said. “Got it.”

  Zorro stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The lookout returned the call. Zorro began running, crouched, as if avoiding gunfire, across the highway and toward the field.

  Andrea reached for her son with both hands, grabbed him under his arms, and hoisted him to her hip. She gave chase, hustling toward the grass. Her feet hurt. Her lower back ached. Her son whimpered as he bounced against her, complaining of being hungry.

  Exposed on the highway as she was for those brief seconds, she felt naked. There was too much moonlight. Her footsteps, as soft as they were on the cracked asphalt of the highway, pounded loudly in the silent, windless night.

  She’d paid Zorro the last of her money to help her escape, to get north of the wall. If she couldn’t succeed on this trip, she’d never have another opportunity.

  The wall was as much a barrier between freedom and oppression as it had ever been. In some ways it was only the first obstacle toward living anything resembling self-determination.

  Years ago, after the Scourge but before the drought had taken root, the government had built it to keep the wilds of Texas contained. Back then, a loosely affiliated collection of gangs called the Cartel had ruthlessly taken control of the region south of the wall. Then they fell, losing to a group called the Dwellers. They were worse than the Cartel and left a power vacuum, which gave rise to more gangs. Texas was the Wild West again. That hadn’t changed in two decades. Not really.

  Instead of organized cartels or gangs with structured hierarchies, Texas had become a no-man’s-land, a loose affiliation of tribal areas. There were nebulous cells of evildoers intent on enforcing their will on the weak or timid.

  The government, or what constituted a close facsimile of one, was essentially a military outfit that enforced heavy-handed laws. And while its primary influence existed north of the wall, it had a strong presence throughout Texas. Its job was to keep the savages at bay, contain them as much as possible, and make sure their anarchical tendencies didn’t bleed into what had been the United States.

  But there was more than that. There was another reason the government had troops roaming the piney woods, plains, and hill country of the Lone Star State.

  After years of virtually no rain, crops and livestock dwindled. The economy collapsed. The government proclaimed there were too many people and not enough goods. That was why Andrea was running.

  Reaching the grass, which was more weeds than dry grass, she stumbled, nearly dropping her child as she hit the uneven earth where the blades grew in thick clumps up to her waist. At the last moment, Zorro reached out from behind one of those clumps and steadied her enough to stop her from losing hold of the boy.

  “Gracias,” she said, crouching next to him, her breathing labored. Her chest hurt as much as her lower back now as she lowered her son to the ground. “Thank you for helping me.”

  Zorro nodded, raising himself above the grass to look deeper into the field toward the wall. He crouched back down, leaning into her, balancing himself on his toes and fingertips. “We’r
e going to run for about thirty seconds and then stop,” he whispered. “There’s an old cattle trough out there. It’s rusted, filled with dirt and dead animals. It’s straight ahead. That’s where we’ll stop.”

  “A trough?”

  “Like a metal bowl,” said Zorro, making large circular motions with his hands. “You know, for cows to drink. Las vacas, si?”

  “Bueno,” said Andrea. “Lo intiendo. I understand. Cows. Hay agua? Is there water?”

  Zorro offered her a look that told her he thought she’d lost her mind. Of course there wasn’t water. How could there be water? It was too foolish a question to answer with anything other than a derisive glare.

  He whispered again, “Andale. Vamanos.”

  Before she answered, Zorro was up again and running like a fox. He hustled through the grass and was beyond her line of sight before she’d leaned into her first step. This time, rather than carry her son, she held his hand and they moved together. The weight of her belly tugged at her back, putting undue pressure on her knees and feet. Every step was painful and arduous. She dragged her son more than led him, the boy’s pace not quick enough to keep up. He whimpered again, complaining about his arm. Andrea ignored him and kept running.

  In her head, she counted to thirty in her native Spanish. “Veinte-dos, veinte-tres, veinte-cuatro…”

  Then she spotted Zorro. The top of his head and his eyes poked above a clump of tall weeds. Weeds were the only things that grew with regularity now.

  Waving at her with both hands, he motioned for her to hurry. In the pale light, she saw his eyes wide with adrenaline. His face was tense with expectation, urging her toward him. Steps away now, the expression on the smuggler’s face shifted. His thick brows curled inward as Zorro turned away from her, glancing over his shoulder as if he’d heard something.

  Andrea’s breathing, the shuffle of her feet, the whining of her son, the thump of her pulse in her ears made it hard for her to hear anything other than her own efforts. But she heard the lightning crack of gunfire tear through the dry, still air in the same instant Zorro’s head snapped back and his body twisted unnaturally. Andrea gasped and instinctively dropped to the ground, tugging her son with her.

  The boy cried out in pain, in confusion, but Andrea pulled him close. Putting her full hand over his mouth, she drew him into her body, against her belly, and rocked him back and forth under the protection of the high, dead weeds.

  “Shhhh, mijo,” she whispered, a knot in her throat and tears blurring her vision. “Shhhhh.”

  Feet from her, through the curtain of weeds, Zorro’s body lay crumpled on the ground, his eyes wide open and staring at her. She squeezed her own shut, pressing the tears down her cheeks. Her body trembled, resisting her struggle to stay still and as silent as possible. If she could just stay quiet. If…

  Then footsteps crunched through the weeds and dead grass and onto the dirt. Voices, two or three, spoke in hushed tones. Andrea tried listening to them over the pulsing throb in her ears. The blood rushing the adrenaline through her body was too much for her.

  Trembling, she put her lips to her boy’s ear and whispered deep into it, urging him to keep quiet, pleading with him to stay as still as possible.

  “Be a statue,” she told him. “Pretend it’s a game.”

  It was too late. One of the voices was above her now. She looked up to see a man offering her his hand, the outline of his body framed by the moonlight. Backlit and in shadow, Andrea couldn’t see his face. His voice was surprisingly kind.

  “Take my hand,” he said softly. “I’ll help you to your feet.”

  Andrea hesitated, tightening her grip on her boy. Blinking past the sheen of tears still welling in her eyes, she shook her head.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” said the man. “C’mon. I’ve got water and some food.”

  Andrea started to raise her hand to his, hesitated, then extended her reach. His thick fingers were calloused and rough, belonging to the hands of a man who’d worked out in the elements.

  He yanked her to her feet and steadied her. “There you go,” he said, a Southern drawl dancing across the words, elongating the vowels as if he was taking his time with each syllable.

  Andrea held her son with her other arm. The boy clung to her, his legs wrapped around her side and his hands clasped tight at the back of her neck.

  Standing, she saw two other men. One of them had a rifle resting on his shoulder. The other, a thin, wiry man who might have been a boy, was pointing at her. Even in the dark, he looked familiar.

  “That’s her,” said the man, his voice high-pitched, matching his thin frame. “She’s the one who paid Zorro.”

  Andrea knew who he was now. Her jaw tightened, and anger supplanted the fear. This was the lookout, the man who’d told Zorro the path was clear.

  “What is this?” she asked, her voice cracking. “What’s going on?”

  The man who’d helped her up planted his hands on his hips. He was tall, broad shouldered, and wore a ball cap on his head. The brim of the cap shaded his eyes, making it impossible to see them in the dark.

  “Well,” he said, glancing toward the lookout and not answering Andrea’s question, “I don’t think it’d take a genius to know this here is the woman who paid Zorro. I mean, take a look at her. She’s about to pop.”

  The other two men chuckled. It wasn’t funny. Andrea adjusted her boy, lifting him up higher on her waist.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice warbling with emotion. “What is this? Why did you kill Zorro?”

  The man in the ball cap rubbed his chin then extended his hand again, offering it to shake. Andrea shot a glance at it but didn’t reciprocate. The man shrugged and lowered his hand.

  “All right then,” he said. “I get it. No offense taken. You’re Andrea Cruz? Don’t answer. I know you’re Andrea Cruz. And this little one in your arms is Javier. Javi, is it?”

  Andrea flinched at the mention of her son’s nickname. How did they know this?

  “The baby,” said the man in the ball cap. “You given her a name yet?”

  Her? How did he know she was having a girl? How could he possibly know about her baby girl, her mija? How? Even Zorro didn’t know that.

  “Oh, forgive me,” he said, half turning to the other men as he spoke. “I’m being so rude. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just a function of the job, you know? I’m sure you understand we ain’t much for the niceties out here at the wall. It’s rough out here. We kinda lose our manners. No excuse, just an explanation.”

  The man took off his ball cap, revealing a bald head that reflected the moonlight. Holding the cap at his chest, he bowed. “My name is Warner. This here is Blessing. He’s the one who took the shot. Mighty good shooting, if I do say so. That scrawny little bugger over there, the one who told us all about you, is Frankie.”

  “What do you want?” Andrea repeated. “Didn’t you say you had water?”

  Warner put his hat back on his head and smiled. “I sure did, didn’t I? Blessing, give Miss Andrea some water. Let Javi have a piece of jerky. I bet it’s been a while since the boy’s eaten anything. How long you been traveling? Four days, is it? You came up from Giddings?”

  Blessing stepped forward, and over Zorro’s body, to hand her a canteen. It was dented aluminum and he shook it at her before she took it from him. The water sloshed inside.

  Andrea eyed the canteen hesitantly, then took it. She unscrewed the top, letting it dangle by the chain that kept it attached to the container’s neck. First, she sniffed it, her gaze flitting to Blessing and then Warner before offering it to her son.

  Javi put his tiny hands atop his mother’s and greedily gulped down swallows of the water while she tipped it back for him. Tendrils of water leaked from the corners of his mouth until she pulled it away from the boy.

  Still holding Andrea’s hand, he gulped air now, catching his breath. He tried to pull the canteen back to his mouth, but she stopped him. “Not too much, mijo,
” she said. “I don’t want you getting sick.”

  He wiped his face with his hand and sheepishly grabbed onto her. Andrea drew the canteen to her lips and drank. How long had it been since she’d had a drink? Hours? A full day? She let it sit in her mouth, swished it in her cheeks, and swallowed. Closing her eyes, she relished the drink despite who’d offered it.

  “Go ahead and finish it,” said Warner. “We’ve got plenty for ourselves. Give Javi some more too if you want. There’s no rush.”

  She lowered the canteen, holding it at her chest, and licked her lips. “You don’t look like you’re with the guard,” she said. “Where’s your uniform?”

  “Who said anything about the guard?”

  The lookout snickered. Warner shot him a glare from underneath the brim of his cap. The lookout stiffened and shut up.

  Andrea handed back the canteen, failing to recap it. Warner looked at it and motioned for Blessing to take the container. She put a hand atop her belly, fingers wide, rubbing it as if to comfort the child still inside.

  “Only the guard kills people at the wall,” said Andrea. “Only the guard…does what it does.”

  “Fair enough,” said Warner. “Let’s say I ain’t one for uniforms. I’m more of a free spirit.”

  Andrea motioned toward Blessing but spoke to Warner. “What about him?”

  “Blessing?” Warner asked. “He’s with me. Good man. Great shot. Brother Blessing could hit a speck a dust in a rainstorm.”

  Now it was Andrea who chuckled sarcastically. “Good man?” she said, protecting her belly with her hand. “What the guard does is evil. What you do is evil.”

  Warner raised a finger and wagged it. “Now that’s not fair, you see. First off, I’m not the one breaking the law here. I’m not the one who tried to sneak across the wall.”

  He adjusted his ball cap, tilting it back on his head. For the first time, Andrea saw his eyes. They were black. Blacker than her hair. Blacker than night. They almost seemed to suck in all of the light around them. When they focused on her belly, a chill ran along her spine, and she clutched her midsection.