Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands Read online

  Trish nodded. “Okay. Reduce the size of the group. Now we’re getting somewhere. But how are we going to get there? You said you weren’t taking the truck.”

  Ed pointed toward the dilapidated van Zach and Jeremy were attempting to load.

  “That thing?” Trish asked. “We won’t make it twenty miles.”

  “It’s better than walking, which will take us forever, and it’s easier to maneuver than the truck. Besides, the truck is too big for a group our size. We’ll take what we need from the truck and put it into the van. Then we can get the hell out of here.”

  Suddenly Terry’s voice boomed from the distance. “Ed! Wait up!”

  Terry hurried toward them, rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked almost comical, his run more of an exaggerated waddle than anything else. He stopped in front of them, slightly out of breath.

  “I’m coming with you guys,” he said between breaths. “I know you said only family, but if I have to spend another minute with that little cocksucker—”

  “Which cocksucker are you talking about?” a voice asked from behind them.

  They turned to see Dario, an M16 clutched in his hands and pointed at them. Behind him stood Autumn, Tina and Reggie, all with their own rifles. “Tell your kids over there to bring me back my fuel.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The mid-morning sun burned hot in the sky while Ed Brady sat on the hard concrete sidewalk leading up to Tex’s building, replaying the events of the morning over and over again in his head. Zach and Jeremy sat beside him. No one spoke. They only sat, as they’d so often done in the years after they left the border town, especially in the days after Sarah’s death, when their family unit had been so harshly broken.

  He felt numb, shell-shocked. Overwhelmed and helpless. Visions of dead children, their eyes open and staring haunted him. Bodies piled on top of more bodies, huddled in a corner with no escape from a madman. A man he’d inadvertently allowed into his inner sanctum. Twenty-two people were dead now, because of one man. He felt sick at the thought.

  And now Dario, another person he’d graciously allowed into his group, had turned on him and taken the truck with all their supplies, along with all the weapons and all the fuel. Everything they had to make the trip to California was now gone. Their one shot at the coast and at the safe haven that Hawaii might offer had vanished. The knowledge of their losses and the sense of failure that came with it left his sense of hope and purpose beaten and bloody.

  He’d failed. He’d failed his sons and he’d failed Trish. He’d failed Jasper, a young man who’d saved his life and mistakenly thought Ed was some kind of leader. And he’d failed Terry, the man who’d supported him from the beginning.

  And all the dead who lay inside the walls of the building behind him; he’d failed them all just the same.

  He swore to Sarah that he’d protect Zach and Jeremy, their only sons and their reason for living. He swore to her through shared tears as the symptoms of the virus quickly took her soul away. He swore to her and he meant it. And although he’d done his best to keep that promise, not only to her but to himself, he’d failed miserably. He lost sight somewhere along the way. Somewhere along the barren and desolate stretches of highway he’d forgotten that the only people he should have ever cared about were those closest to him. Trying to be some sort of savior, some kind of leader of people had left his own family stranded and dozens of people dead.

  Dario hadn’t killed them, but he’d left them for dead just the same. Their hopes and their dreams disappeared as the truck roared out of sight with a liar and a coward behind the wheel.

  “What do we do now, Dad?” Zach asked.

  “I don’t know, buddy,” Ed replied.

  “We’ll figure something out, right?” Jeremy said. “We always do.”

  Ed returned a weak smile. “I don’t know if we will this time.”

  “Don’t say that,” Zach said.

  “You told us to never give up,” Jeremy said. “Don’t you remember? You always told us that.”

  “I know I did. But this time…I just don’t know.” Ed sighed. “This time is different.”

  “No, it’s not,” Trish said. “It’s not different at all.” She sat beside them and she fixed Ed in a stare. “Do you remember the bridge outside of St. Louis?”

  Ed nodded. “Of course I do.”

  “Did you give up then?”

  Ed remembered the three bullets he used to carry in a special magazine kept always in his front pocket. That had always been their final solution. Two bullets for the kids and one for himself, should things become absolutely and totally hopeless.

  “I asked you a question,” Trish said.

  Ed took a deep breath. “No.”

  “Things looked pretty hopeless then, but you didn’t give up.”

  “That was different.”

  “Was it? Was it really?”

  Ed didn’t reply.

  “What about the train wreck? Did you give up on finding us? Did you quit then?”

  Ed’s mouth formed a thin line. “No.”

  “We didn’t give up on you either. We kept going, because that’s what we do. Isn’t it?”

  Ed didn’t reply.

  “That’s what we do. That’s what this family does. We keep going and we don’t give up. Ever.”

  Ed stared back into Trish’s eyes. In them he saw love and dedication. In them he saw a will to fight and survive that far surpassed his own. He saw the kind of person he wanted to be. The kind of person he needed to be, for her and for his children, for Sarah and for himself.

  He touched her face and she smiled. She spoke no words. The four of them held each other tightly for a very long time. It was the first time they’d done so in a very, very long time. Too long.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Behind the wheel of the fully stocked truck, Dario Oliver had finally gotten what he’d wanted all along. That idiot Ed had led them to one disaster after another and it had taken all Dario could muster to not take the helm sooner than he had. Only after that psycho gunned down nearly the entire group did the situation become completely clear to him. And what he needed to do became clear as well.

  Taking the truck and the supplies wasn’t the worst he could have done. He could have killed Ed and the rest of them. It wasn’t like there were any police around anymore. He could have taken them prisoner and worked them like slaves. He considered that, but he would have had to feed them and constantly keep an eye on them. They’d always be looking for an opportunity to escape. No, it was simply easier to leave them behind. Let them fend for themselves.

  Really when you thought about it he’d been very kind. Sure, he’d taken all the supplies, fuel and guns, but he’d left them alive. The compassion he’d shown further proved his leadership skills, that and the fact that he’d been able to convince a large number of the group to follow him. Now that Ed Brady no longer controlled things, they might actually get to California in one piece.

  Dario glanced over at the redhead in the passenger seat. Autumn, she called herself. Nice name. She was cute, too. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he had an attraction to her. And after he successfully led the group to the coast and they were all on their way to Hawaii, it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that she might reciprocate with some due affection. What was the saying? Behind every man is a great woman? Something like that.

  They’d been traveling for an hour now and she hadn’t said a word. He could understand that. After all, everyone she knew was dead. She needed some time to recuperate from that loss. Dario himself didn’t worry too much about it. People lived and died, it was the way of the world. Mostly these days they died. He didn’t worry too much about death anymore. He’d seen so much of it that it became as much a part of living as anything else. If he stopped to mourn every dead body he saw he’d never get anywhere. It might sound uncaring to others, but they weren’t leaders. They didn’t understand what it took to look past the trivial
and focus on the big picture. Ed had the same problem, always worried about his family and whatnot. With no family, Dario wasn’t saddled with this problem. Just another reason why he was more qualified.

  The journey would take some time, that was for sure. The rusting cars formed random roadblocks, congested in some areas and spaced far apart in others. He could ramp the truck up to thirty miles per hour in some places, but found himself slowing back down again once the cars piled up again. Some remained fused together, the results of years-old collisions. People had panicked when the virus set in and the roadways became graveyards.

  An hour on the road and three, maybe four miles covered. At this rate it would take them months to reach the coast. And the fuel they burned in the process was nearly impossible to replace. The gas they carried had been treated, or so he was told by Ed and his people, but he only half-trusted that info. He supposed if they ran out of the gas they carried with them they could siphon more from the cars around them. Sure, it was old, but it would probably work just fine. As long as the truck didn’t break down. He suddenly wished they had a mechanic on board. He’d figure it out if something happened though. A good leader always did.

  Everything had finally worked out to his advantage. He found it hard to suppress a little smile. He thought about Ed sitting back at Tex’s deathtrap and wondered if the guy was kicking himself right about now. He probably felt like a fool, getting bested by someone he never thought could do so. If he was being honest, Dario had to admit that a big part of why he’d left Ed alive was to allow that knowledge to worm its way into the guy’s brain. There was definitely something satisfying about knowing that Ed had nothing left now and that Dario himself had taken it all from him. Dario supposed it was possible that Ed might come after him for revenge, but it was unlikely. Besides, the guy didn’t even have any weapons. Dario had made sure of that before he left those idiots behind.

  Yes, things had worked out nicely after all. Dario leaned back in the seat and guided the truck onto the shoulder to avoid another pileup of cars. He glanced over at Autumn again, marveling at the way her calves looked in the midday sun. She had the sexiest freckles. He was imagining himself licking her up and down when the passenger window exploded, glass shards covering them as a hail of bullets rained down upon them like hellfire itself.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Steven Barnes said from the driver’s seat. He spied the truck maneuvering around a pile of smashed up cars. “You were right after all.”

  “I told you so,” Alice replied with conviction from the passenger seat.

  “That you did.” He dropped back, keeping some distance between them to avoid being spotted. “So what’s the play here? You know what they’re packing.”

  “They have a small arsenal on board,” Alice said. “They’ll be keeping people in the back, all armed. You come up from behind, they’ll fill us full of lead. You and I will be the first to die.”

  “Point taken,” Barnes replied. He studied the truck ahead. “Flanking them won’t work either. The truck’s bed is closed on three of its four sides, so they’ll be pretty well defended if we try to hit them from anywhere but the front.”

  “Just what I was going to recommend,” Alice said. “Head on is the weak spot. Only two, maybe three people up front. Sure, they could get off a few shots, but nothing like what they can do from the truck bed.”

  “I like the way you think,” Barnes said.

  Alice scanned the area around the highway. “This is all interstate, so there will be exits every few miles or so. We take the next one and we haul ass on the side streets. They’re slow, so if we make good time we can overtake them. We go a few exits ahead and get back on the highway. There we wait. They’ll come right to us.”

  Barnes nodded. “I’ll set up a couple of guys off to the side. They can hit the cab when they get close.”

  “Don’t shoot the driver,” Alice said.

  “You’re not in charge here,” Barnes said, frowning.

  “I’m just saying you need to get the driver to stop that truck himself. Then you shoot him.”

  “And how do you figure we make that happen? Just stop and ask the guy? Make sure we say please?”

  Alice glanced around. “That van,” she said, pointing.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Find a chokepoint and block it with that van over there. The driver will stop.”

  “No, they won’t. They’ll plow right through it,” Barnes argued.

  “Maybe, but if you leave it wide open for them then you know they’re going to run. Blocking the way is the only chance you have at getting that truck to stop. More likely they’ll slow down and try to push the van out of the way. That’s when I hit the driver.”

  “You?”

  “Ed Brady will almost definitely be driving. Our deal is that I get to kill him for leaving me for dead back at that freak church.”

  Barnes sat silent, considering. “If he’s still alive when the truck stops, he’s yours. But I’m not taking any chances here. That’s the best deal you’re gonna get.”

  Alice paused, considering. “Deal,” she said. She pointed ahead. “Up there. Let’s take that exit.”

  “I see it. Good idea,” Barnes said. “If you play your cards right, you might end up in my crew. First woman we’ve ever had. Well, as part of the crew at least.”

  Alice smiled. Not if I have anything to do with it, she thought.

  * * *

  They made spectacular time on the side roads, just as Alice had hoped. Everything relied upon getting in front of that truck. Barnes skillfully maneuvered around stalled vehicles and other garbage littering the road. He wasn’t much of a leader, Alice thought, but he was one hell of a driver.

  They kept away from view of the highway as best they could. Unfortunately that prevented them from being able to see whether or not they’d actually passed the truck at all. They had no other choice than to assume they had, hoping the truck didn’t run into a fortunate stretch of clear road and pull ahead of Barnes’s van. If so, they would spend precious time sitting and waiting on the truck while it continued onward, well past their ambush point.

  She gave the plan a fifty percent chance of working. To Barnes, of course, Alice exuded nothing more than complete confidence. But there were a lot of people with a lot of semi-automatic rifles in that truck. A few well-placed shots (or even a lot of not-so-well-placed shots) would make short work of Barnes, his crew and Alice.

  But there was no way she would allow that bastard Ed Brady out of her grasp, even if it meant risking her own life. Barnes and his merry band of freaks would have simply raped, killed and eaten her anyway, so what did she have to lose? They might still do that even after retrieving the truck, but she’d simply have to take her chances with that too.

  Barnes remained focused on the road, glancing periodically in the direction of the highway they couldn’t see. She didn’t address him, instead allowing him to retain his focus. Apparently his men also knew to keep their mouths shut. They simply rode in the back, bouncing from side to side, rifles, machetes and knives in hand and poised for action.

  Six miles later a road sign appeared, signaling the direction back to the highway entrance ramp.

  “We should get back on the highway,” Alice suggested. “Entrance ramp is coming up.”

  Barnes grunted and hooked a left turn as the signs indicated, heading toward the highway. A minute later the derelict road revealed itself, still littered with the remnants of a fossil-fuel obsessed society. He squeezed the van between two side-by-side cars nearly blocking the entrance ramp before merging on to the aging concrete surface. He drove for another couple of minutes before finding an area congested enough for the van to create a roadblock.

  “You’d better be right about that truck stopping,” he said, guiding the truck into the spot and parking it parallel, blocking the way. “Or else we’re all fucked.”

  “You get your peop
le into place,” Alice replied, “and the rest will work itself out.”

  Barnes put the van into park and killed the engine. Silence loomed, interrupted only by the occasional tick of the van’s engine cooling. He called to the men in the back before exiting the van. Alice remained inside.

  Outside the van, Alice overheard bits and pieces of the conversation. She watched through the passenger window as Barnes pointed out locations on either side of the highway. Two pairs of men broke off, headed for cover on either side of the highway a little further up. The remaining men stayed behind and took cover behind the defunct cars sitting on old, flattened tires.

  Barnes opened the passenger door and stepped aside. “Out you go,” he said, closing the door behind her. “Now we wait.”

  Alice held up a finger, cocked her head and listened. It was faint, but she could hear it. The truck’s engine rumbling from just over the hill before them, out of view. “Not for long,” she said. “They’re already here.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Dario slammed on the brakes, a reaction driven primarily by fear. The gunfire had come without any sort of warning at all and things were now happening so quickly that he had little time to react. He felt as if he were outside of his body looking in, watching a man clumsily attempt to glean some sort of order and meaning out of chaos.

  As the truck ground to a halt, the people in the back yelled as their forward momentum propelled them toward the cab, along with any of the flatbed’s contents not strapped down. Tires screeched as the engine protested. Dario barely noticed that he’d downshifted two full gears instead of one, forcing the truck to an even quicker stop.

  Then, as quickly as it had begun, everything stopped. The familiar idle of the engine returned as wind blew in through the shattered side windows. Dario looked at Autumn in the passenger seat, her face expressive and in shock, her white dress splattered with a large and violent blood stain.