The Traveler 01-03 Home, Canyon, Wall Read online

There were at least two distinct voices. The only word Battle recognized in the loud chatter was qutil, which meant killed.

  He could assume he’d hit the sniper. There were at least two other men in their way.

  Battle couldn’t see them. He pressed the trigger again anyway, sweeping the barrel infinitesimally from the left to the right, sending another half dozen shots screaming across the valley and up the embankment.

  Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

  The thunder of the shots was followed by the thud and crack of a body hitting the concrete embankment. There were no voices following the shots this time.

  Battle slid back under the flatcar and pulled himself back to Buck’s side. The sergeant was still lying on his back. His eyes were closed, trails of sweat on his forehead glistening in the orange glow.

  “You get ’em?” Buck slurred.

  “Yeah. I’m sure there’ll be more. We’ve got to find a way to get out of this light. It’s too much of a disadvantage.”

  Buck laughed and then coughed. “I’ve been saying that.”

  Battle looked at the row of flatcars and counted them. There were five. To the north, the first of the five was hooked to a long chain of freight wagons. Those wagons stretched beyond the lighted portion of the rail yard. If he could get to them, he could travel from car to car without anyone seeing him move. He could emerge beyond in the darkness on the far northern edge of the valley. It would mean tracking back south once they’d reached the eastern fence line. It was a far better alternative than an exposed rush across the shortest distance.

  “I’ve got a plan,” he said. “We’re gonna get out of here.”

  “You’ve been saying that,” Buck mumbled through a film of drool. “I’ll believe you when you do it.”

  CHAPTER 8

  OCTOBER 15, 2037, 7:04 AM

  SCOURGE + 5 YEARS

  ABILENE, TEXAS

  The Humvee screeched to a stop. Battle jumped from the bed and met Lola on the passenger side. She was standing by the open door. Even in the dim light of predawn he could see her brows were furrowed and she looked ready to pounce.

  “What are you doing?” She shoved him with both hands. “I want my son back and you’re playing vigilante.” She shoved him again and then pounded his chest with both fists.

  “You’re gonna get us killed,” said Pico. He was leering at them from across the Humvee and waving his hands above his head. He’d left the Humvee running. “You use grenades to blow up the HQ and then you use…whatever that is…to set Skinner’s house on fire. She’s right, you’re not helping her boy.”

  Battle glanced over at Pico and then back at Lola. “We need to get into the post office,” he said and nodded at the ten-foot chain-link fence in front of them.

  “Answer me.” Lola glared at him. “Don’t ignore me. Don’t tell me it’s your way or nothing. What would you do if it were your son?”

  Battle’s eyes narrowed and he stuck a finger in Lola’s face. “Don’t talk about my son,” he spat. “You don’t have that right. I know what I’m doing.”

  Lola stepped back from his finger. “It would help if you shared whatever it is you’re doing with us. Our lives are at stake too. We’re not soldiers. We’re not the animal you are.”

  Battle took a step forward, his finger still jabbing at the air in front of Lola’s nose. “If I tell you everything about what’s coming, you’ll argue. You’ll fight. You’ll question. You can’t do that.”

  “I know these people better than you do,” Pico said. “What you’re doing, the bombing, the burning, it’s gonna get us killed. I’m telling you.”

  Battle faked a smile, grinning widely. “Okay then. I’ll fill you in on why I’m doing what I’m doing, but we’re wasting time. Every second I spend explaining myself is another second these people get closer to us.”

  Lola and Pico stood silently. Lola folded her arms across her chest. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  Battle huffed. “I want their attention. I’m want them hurried. I want them panicking. We use grenades to blow up the HQ and then a totally different weapon to set fire to Skinner’s house. It tells them we’re well supplied. It gives them pause.”

  “What about the element of surprise?” Pico asked. “That’s gone.”

  “Given that we don’t know where her son is,” Battle argued, “I don’t know how much that would have helped us.”

  “Your plan hasn’t found him so far,” Lola chided.

  “So far,” Battle said. “We’ve been here for less than an hour. They’ll be coming for us. They know we’re in a Humvee. They’ll see it parked here. We’ll be fine. I need to get into that post office.”

  “This is no plan,” mocked Lola. “This is suicide, that’s all it is.”

  Battle took a deep breath. “You’re impatient. I get it. You want your son. No matter how we approach this, it’s dangerous. Trust me.”

  “Battle!” Pico snapped. “They’re already here.”

  Battle looked over his shoulder. A platoon of men was racing toward them on horses from the east. He cursed and leapt into the back of the Humvee. “Get in,” he instructed and tore open his pack. He yanked out a flash-bang grenade and clipped it to his belt. He pulled out a new scope and a thirty-round magazine for Inspector. He affixed the scope to a mount on the top of the semiautomatic rifle and then replaced the current magazine with the fresh thirty round mag.

  He banged on the top of the Humvee and Pico threw it into drive, peeling away from the curb to move west. Battle pulled the rifle sling over his head and adjusted it with his thumb. He dropped to his knee for balance and turned to face the back of the bed.

  Battle counted at least six horses. They were gaining.

  “You should have found the boy already,” a voice in Battle’s head said, shaking his focus. “Lola was right,” Sylvia counseled. “You’re distracted from the purpose and you’re going to get everyone killed.”

  Battle shook his head, disagreeing, trying to free his mind of his wife’s criticism. “I’m not getting anyone killed.” He crawled on all fours to the back of the Humvee’s bed. He braced himself with one hand and then set himself between a supply bag and a pair of large ten-gallon gasoline canisters.

  “You’re plotting this as a direct action instead of a simple hostage rescue,” Sylvia’s voice argued. “And you’re sanitizing it. This isn’t some high-value extraction, Marcus. You’re trying to return a son to his mother.”

  Battle clenched his jaw and swung Inspector into position. He looked through the scope, adjusting the focal length to get a good look at the pursuing horsemen. They were armed with Brownings and revolvers. One of them, on the left of the formation, was carrying an AR assault rifle. That one was wearing a brown hat. He was a posse boss.

  Battle lost his focus when Pico swung the Humvee north and took the turn too quickly. The rear wheels drifted and Battle slammed into the left side of the bed. He held onto the rifle and squared himself.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he told the voice.

  The horsemen cut the corner and shortened the distance between their detachment and the Humvee.

  “If you have to tell me that—” she laughed “—then you don’t. You haven’t been active duty in more than a decade, Marcus. You need to think of this like a father, not like the soldier you aren’t anymore.”

  “I’m not a father anymore either,” he snapped and immediately regretted it as he reset his position at the back of the bed. The voice didn’t respond. Sylvia was gone.

  Battle swallowed the lump in his throat and drew the rifle to his shoulder. He picked the lead horseman, exhaled, and tapped the trigger.

  Thump!

  He lifted his eye from the scope in time to see the horseman jerk and slump forward on the horse. His hands, still wrapped around the reins, yanked the animal’s head down and to the right, guiding it straight into the path of another horse. The two collided and tumbled over each other. The second horse threw its
rider forward over its head and landed on him.

  Battle exhaled and dropped his eye to the scope. He picked the boss, aimed at his head, and tapped the trigger again.

  Thump!

  Battle kept his eye at the scope this time. The bullet missed its mark, drilling into the brown hat atop the boss’s head and knocking it off. The boss reached for it and missed.

  Battle took aim again. He pulled the trigger, holding it a beat longer, and Pico took another hard turn to the right, this time heading west away from town. Battle lost his balance as he fired.

  Thump! Thump!

  Both shots went wide and missed everything until they sank into the vinyl siding of a long-closed cafe. Battle grabbed the side of the Humvee and regained his balance. He looked back to see the four horsemen of the post-apocalypse cut another corner. Somehow, they were keeping up with the Humvee.

  Battle checked his hip and tugged at the flash-bang grenade. He held the long black cylinder tight in his hand as the Humvee passed a faded yellow clapboard house. Battle kept his eyes on the house and counted out loud until the horses passed the same house.

  “Four seconds,” he said. “That’ll work.”

  He pulled the pin on the grenade, held his hand over the Humvee’s tailgate for one second, and dropped it into the middle of the road. He ducked down into the bed, covering his ears.

  Three seconds later the flash-bang detonated just as the group of horses reached it. The loud explosion and bright flash of light stunned the animals and their riders. Battle peeked over the back of the Humvee in time to see the panic. The horses were running in different directions. One of them was on its side in the street, having fallen. Another was on its hind legs, roaring and snorting. The resulting cloud of thick white smoke plumed quickly and enveloped them before dissipating.

  Pico kept the Humvee speeding west for another couple of minutes, and Battle climbed to the front of the bed to bang on the cab. The Humvee slowed to a stop and Battle hopped out. He looked at the sun-bleached green street signs. They were at the intersection of Victoria and Ninth Streets. There was a church on the southwest corner. The sun was peeking above the horizon to the east. The sepia tone of early morning was giving way to orange and red.

  Pico opened his door, remaining in his seat. “Why are we stopping?”

  “We lost them,” Battle said. “For now.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We need to head back. Not in this. There’s a big carport over there next to that church. Go park it there. We’ll get what we need and head back into town.”

  Battle shut the door and directed Pico to the carport. He trailed behind and then met Pico and Lola as they were exiting the vehicle.

  “If I remember correctly, we walk east about a mile and then turn south,” said Battle. “We’ll find them at the HQ. That’s where they’ll be.”

  “You think?” Lola asked.

  “Yeah.” Battle nodded. “It’s a natural gathering place for them. And it’s across the street from the post office.” He looked down at Lola’s ankle still wrapped in an Ace bandage. She’d injured it the night they met. “How’s your ankle?”

  “Better,” she said. “The swelling is going down. I can put my weight on it. I’m good to walk, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Good to hear. You can make it to the post office?”

  Lola nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Then what?”

  “We’ll talk about it on the way,” Battle said, slugging a large pack onto his back. “And, Lola?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry.” Battle looked at Lola’s feet. “If it were my son, I’d have handled it differently. I made a mistake.”

  “Thank you,” Lola said softly and hooked her pack at her waist. She looked at Battle, trying to draw his eyes to hers. “We better find him. He better be okay.”

  CHAPTER 9

  OCTOBER 15, 2037, 7:15 AM

  SCOURGE + 5 YEARS

  SNYDER, TEXAS

  Sawyer gripped the bars of his cell, rubbing his palms on the roughness of the rusted iron. He had no concept of time or place. All he knew was that he was alone and in trouble.

  His mop of red hair hung over his eyes, and he leaned his forehead against the cold bars. He was tall for thirteen, and bone thin like his mother. His stomach groaned from hunger, interrupting him from any semblance of good sleep.

  Sawyer couldn’t remember the last time he’d really slept. It certainly hadn’t been since the Scourge. His eyes were always encircled with darkness, his legs always tingled on the verge of weakness. He suffered a headache so consistently he didn’t even notice it anymore except when it drew blurriness and light sensitivity in his right eye.

  He squeezed the bars, tried rattling them, and let go. He sulked back to a lone metal bed that hung from the concrete wall by a pair of metal chain links and rubbed his hands free of the rust. Sawyer plopped down and leaned against the wall. He closed his eyes and was drifting into an uneasy twilight until a loud metallic bang caught his attention. He opened his eyes to see a pair of grunts standing at his cell.

  “You know your momma’s dead,” the shorter of the two said. “Ain’t no way you’re gonna see her again.” He laughed and backhanded the chest of the larger grunt, who answered the thump with his own chuckle.

  “You shoulda never ran off,” said the taller grunt. “You found yourself a world of hurt now. It ain’t gonna end good fer ya.”

  Sawyer pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. His eyes danced between the grunts. He didn’t say anything. He knew better.

  “You hear me?” asked the shorter grunt. “Things are about to get real bad and your momma ain’t gonna be around to kiss it and make it better.” He offered a greasy smile and laughed. “Real bad.”

  “I think he asked you a question.” The taller grunt banged his fists against the bars.

  Sawyer shook from the noise and trembled. “I heard him,” he said.

  “You heard what?”

  “I heard he said it’s about to get hard.” Sawyer wiped the back of his nose with his arm. “And my mom’s not gonna be around to help me.”

  “You ever heard of the Jones?”

  Sawyer shook his head. Sawyer hadn’t heard of a lot of things.

  He was eight when the Scourge had taken hold. He and his parents had been living in a small riverfront house in Jacksonville, Florida. Both of them had worked. Sawyer would go to a day care after school. They would eat a lot of fast food and takeout for dinner. They’d spend weekends together on the beach or fishing on the river.

  He didn’t remember much of his life pre-Scourge. He’d blocked it out or forgotten it. There were occasional flashes, snapshots of what life had been. He couldn’t put them in context or be certain whether they were real memories or images from dreams.

  It didn’t really matter. Neither existed in the post-Scourge world in which Sawyer had lived nearly half his life. It was a life spent on the run, in hiding, full of fear.

  His mother, he knew, had done everything she could to keep him safe and provide food and shelter. She’d done unthinkable, selfless things for his sake. All of her sacrifices, he thought, were worthless. She was dead. He would be soon. Sawyer was thirteen and he’d already lived the lives of five men. That was penance lost on Sawyer; those who survived the Scourge were damned to live their remaining years in a painful slow motion.

  “What’s the Jones?” Sawyer bit. He could sense from the grunts they weren’t going to make anything easy for him.

  The taller grunt answered Sawyer’s question with another question. “You like games?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “I guess.”

  “It’s like a game, then.” The grunt chuckled.

  “You could call it a game,” said the shorter grunt. He pressed his face against the bars and stuck out his tongue to wiggle it. “It’s no dominos or nothing.”

  Both men laughed. “It’s no dominos,” they echoed one another.
<
br />   Sawyer shifted his back against the cinder-block wall. “What is it, then?”

  The taller grunt stopped laughing and cleared his throat. “I want you to imagine the worst day of your life. Can you do that?”

  Sawyer blinked. He swallowed hard. He pulled his knees tighter against his chest. The bad days were always close to the surface. It was the good ones that took time to render.

  “I’m guessing you got a bad day all conjured up?” the shorter one sneered. “Now double it and add the boogie monster.”

  “The boogie monster!” hollered the tall one, his words bouncing off the walls of the cell. “The damn boogie monster. I love it!”

  Sawyer had no idea what they meant. He’d never heard of the boogie monster. He concluded it wasn’t good. He bit the inside of his cheek, working hard to keep the tears at bay. The harder he bit, the more his eyes welled. He shuddered and the tears spilled down his cheeks.

  “You got a few more hours here,” said the shorter one once he’d stopped laughing. “You can cry like a baby till then. After that, you’re on the move.”

  “Yeah,” the taller one chimed. “You’re on the move to the Jones.”

  Both of them slammed their fists against the bars and followed each other away from the cell and down a narrow hallway. They turned a corner and disappeared. There was a loud buzzing sound, a click, and the sound of a door opening and closing. The echo of the door dissipated and left Sawyer sitting alone again in silence.

  He buried his head in between his chest and his knees. He gripped his hands tightly, squeezing his fingers too hard, and he sobbed. Whatever or whoever the Jones was, he was afraid of it.

  Sawyer’s mother had always told him to be positive. She’d told him that there was always hope. And with hope there was the possibility that tomorrow would be better than today. She was gone now. She was dead. She was with his father. At thirteen years old, Sawyer sat on a metal bench in a central Texas jail cell, certain he would die a death worse than the Scourge.

  There was no hope.