Wall: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 3) (22 page)

“Days?” asked Sawyer, sounding more like an impatient child than the wizened teen who’d survived on his wit and guile. “Seriously?”

Battle put his hand on Sawyer’s head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We worry about what we can control. Nothing else. Got it?”

Sawyer offered Battle a smile and nodded. He tucked his thumbs under his pack straps and tugged. Battle caught Lola smiling too from the corner of his eye.

The thin man sped up his gait to keep up with Battle. “Where are you headed?” he asked. “What’s your responsibility?”

“The narrow passage that descends into the canyon,” said Battle.

The thin man’s eyebrows arched and he motioned toward Sawyer with his head. “With the kid?”

Sawyer arched his back and set his jaw. “I’m not a—”

Battle put his hand on Sawyer’s head, palming it like a basketball, and gently squeezed. “Yes,” he said, “including this young man. He’ll be an asset.” Battle didn’t fully believe what he was saying, but given there was no turning back, he deemed it better to praise Sawyer. The higher the boy’s spirits, the greater his confidence, the better chance they all had of surviving the Cartel’s advance.

The man’s frown deepened, accentuated by his cold-reddened nose and cheeks. “Huh,” he said. “All right then. I’m headed in the same direction. Have the same job. I’m not crazy about a child getting in the way.”

Despite the frosty morning, the man’s forehead was glistening with sweat. He kept rubbing his thumb across the buttstock of his rifle.

“We’ll be fine,” said Battle. “This kid here isn’t a kid. He’s seen and survived more than most. We’re lucky to have him with us.”

The man wiped his brow and grunted something unintelligible. He slowed his pace, allowing Battle, Lola, and Sawyer to march ahead of him.

Battle looked over his shoulder and waved at the thin man. “We’ll see you up there.”

Lola sidestepped to move closer to Battle, cursing the thin man under her breath.

“He’s nervous,” said Battle. His words weren’t as easy to come by as they began their slight ascent toward the elevated plateau at the mouth of the narrow passage. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and blew it out. “I’ve got a name for your rifle,” he said to Sawyer, trying to distract him.

Sawyer’s eyes lit up. A smile returned to his face. “What is it? Did you make it good?”

Battle was conflicted by the boy’s internal dichotomy. On one hand, Sawyer was a grizzled survivalist who’d lived more than his share of heartache and knew too well the faces of evil. Then there were flashes of adolescent exuberance.

His eyes lost focus for an instant, the corners of his lips pulled downward. The Scourge had killed two-thirds of the world’s population. It also killed childhood.

Sawyer nudged Battle’s arm. “Battle? What’s the name?”

Battle’s eyes blinked back to the moment. “Jed.”

“Jed?”

“Main character in the movie
Red Dawn
,” Battle explained. “It was a movie about a bunch of teenagers who fight back when their hometown gets invaded by foreign enemies.”

“Who were the enemies?”

“In the original, which is maybe fifty years old now, it was the Russians,” said Battle. “In the remake, which I saw as a kid, it was the Chinese.”

“That’s another one to watch,” said Sawyer. He held up the rifle in front of him. “Jed. I like it.”

“What about you, Marcus?” asked Lola.

“What about me?”

Lola glanced at Battle’s hands. “What are you going to name your rifle?”

Battle looked at the HK and shrugged. “It doesn’t need a name,” he said. “I’ve got people now.”

Lola held his gaze for moment until Battle felt a burning sensation in his chest. He smiled and she looked at the ground in front of her.

Battle couldn’t be sure if the redness in her cheeks was from the cold or from what he’d said. Sawyer answered it for him.

“You two are disgusting.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

OCTOBER 26, 2037, 5:16 AM

SCOURGE +5 YEARS

DALLAS, TEXAS

The cavernous, eleven-thousand-square-foot motorcycle showroom was empty. Ana shone the flashlight across the gray tile floor and the gray-paneled walls of the front area. The red triangular Ducati emblem on the wall behind the service counter was cracked. A large square sales poster was ripped in half. Others were evidently missing, only the hanging mechanisms intact against the wall.

Ana jumped when a large possum scurried past her, its long claws clicking across the floor. It stopped in the beam of light and hissed at her, baring its tiny, sharp teeth before dashing off into a dark corner of the large room.

Without the stroller, Ana kept Penny on her chest in the pack converted into a baby carrier. Penny was chewing on her fist. Her lower teeth had begun to come in. She was drooling and babbling as she gnawed on the meat of her hand.

Ana scoured the showroom, methodically working through the connected rooms. There was nothing. It was a bust.

Dejected, she found her way back to the main room and the service counter. She swiped off the thick layer of dust and grime with her hands, clapped them as clean as she could, and unloaded her baby-filled pack onto the counter’s grimy surface. She turned Penny around so she was facing her and gave her a kiss on the forehead. She turned off the crank flashlight and slid it into her pocket.

Ana stepped back clear of the counter and stretched her arms above her head. She bent over at her waist and touched her toes. Her lower back and shoulders appreciated the relief. She turned her head from side to side, wincing at the cracking sound of air pockets popping in the joint fluid in her neck.

She stretched her shoulders and her ankles. The exercise was as much an energizing tension reliever as it was a stalling tactic. Ana had no idea what was next. Then she saw a folded piece of paper on the floor, half of it sticking out from underneath the service counter.

She reached for the piece of paper and slid it out from under the counter. She picked it up and unfolded it. It was a map. She spread it out on the counter next to Penny.

She pulled the flashlight from her pocket, cranked it, and turned it on. The map was of Texas before the Scourge. It was tattered and torn in spots at the worn folds. There were stains that obscured some of the markings and town names. It had highlighted scenic motorcycle routes throughout the state. Most of them were far west of her in what used to be known as the Hill Country.

Ana aimed the light at Palo Duro Canyon, east of Amarillo. With one hand she guided the light along the straightest viable route to Dallas while she traced it with a finger from the other hand.

Looking at the legend on the bottom right, she estimated she had as much as four hundred miles to go. Ana looked over her shoulder toward the parking lot. The horse could move at maybe twenty to thirty miles per hour on average, she guessed. It would take her another day, if she were lucky, to get to the canyon. She hadn’t been lucky so far.

She slid her finger north along Interstate 35 and aimed the light at Gainesville, Texas. It was only a few miles south of the Red River, the natural border between Texas and Oklahoma. She didn’t know exactly where the wall was built, but she could reasonably assume it was somewhere between Gainesville and the river. That was maybe an eighty-mile trip. She could make that in less than half a day, no problem.

She could even detour a few miles to the east and find fresh water at Lake Ray Roberts. That made more sense to her than trying to find help at the canyon.

Ana was sure she’d find someone near the wall to help her across. She hoped she would. She prayed she would.

She refolded the map, careful not to worsen the existing rips and tears. She unzipped the front pocket of the baby pack and tucked it inside. She spun Penny around and slugged the pack onto her shoulders.

She had a new plan. A good plan. “We’re gonna be okay,” she promised her daughter. She nuzzled her mouth against the top of Penny’s head. “We’re gonna be okay.” She kissed Penny’s head and pushed her way out of the showroom, a new bounce in her step. Ana was hours closer to the freedom she sought than she thought she’d been minutes earlier.

The door rattled closed behind her and she walked to her horse. It was chewing on some weeds that had grown through a series of webbed cracks in the ruptured asphalt parking lot.

Ana untied the animal from its mooring at the utility pole, grabbed the saddle horn with one hand, and heaved herself into her seat. She popped a pacifier into her daughter’s mouth. Penny grunted at the sudden movement, but seemed unaffected by the jolt. She was a good baby. Even teething, she was a trouper.

Ana settled into the saddle and adjusted her feet in the stirrup irons. She checked the rifle tucked into the scabbard to her right. She drew a six-shooter from the saddlebag to her left, popping open the cylinder to check it. It was loaded. She closed the cylinder in time to hear a man’s voice behind her.

“Can I help you?” The voice was gruff and dripping with a deep Texas drawl. The
L
in
help
was barely detectible. “You look like you need some help.”

Ana jerked her head and looked over her shoulder, leveling the pistol at the stranger. “I don’t need any help,” she said.

The man was standing in the middle of the street. His shoulder-length hair hung over his eyes. His thick, wiry beard came to an irregular point at his chest. He raised his hands above his head, revealing his flat stomach and a handgun tucked into the front of his baggy, tightly cinched cargo pants.

He took a step forward. “Okay then,” he said. “I figured ’cause of the baby and all…”

Using one hand, Ana turned the horse to face the stranger. “Keep your hands above your head. Don’t move any closer.”

He took another step toward her. “No need to get your dander up, little lady,” he said. “I ain’t the boogeyman.”

“I said don’t step any closer.”

The stranger moved another step, his boot scraping against the asphalt. “You ain’t gonna shoot me.” He smiled, shaking the bangs from his eyes. “I ain’t done nothing to you except offer to help.”

Ana waved the barrel of the pistol at him. “If you’re trying to help me,” she said. “Stop moving. Do what I tell you to do.”

His smile spread into a cheeky grin. He lowered his hands slowly, almost imperceptibly, as he slid his boot forward on the street. He kept his eyes on hers until they shifted over her right shoulder for a split second. Ana caught the glance and turned to her right, but it was too late. The stranger’s partner was already at her side, a shotgun inches from Penny’s head.

The stranger cleared his throat. “You’re gonna need to do what I tell you from here on out. That understood?”

Ana ran through an index of options, trying to instantaneously play out the result of each move. None of them ended well. She shifted in her seat closer to the stranger. Her muscles tensed; her face reddened; her heart pulsed with such force she felt it thump in the side of her neck. The horse snorted.

“Get that gun away from my daughter’s head,” she snapped at the partner while keeping the pistol aimed at the stranger.

“We can’t do that,” said the stranger. “Least not until you do as we say. We’re gonna need that horse, your weapons, and whatever you got in those saddlebags. We done killed younger than your baby, so it ain’t a problem if you can’t work with us. Understood?”

“You hear him?” said the partner. He extended the shotgun closer to her daughter. “You gonna do what we say?”

Ana kept the pistol across her body and aimed at the stranger’s head, drawing it lower the closer he came to her left side. She pressed her right foot against the stirrup iron.

The horse snorted again and shook its head. It stepped back. Its restlessness was palpable.

“Whoa,” said the stranger. “Hold up there, fella.” His hands were out in front of him, coaxing the horse to calm. “It’s gonna be all right. We need your momma to drop that pistol to the ground and hand my partner there your reins.”

The partner inched closer. “Drop the pistol,” he spat. “Do it.”

Ana held the stranger’s eyes with hers. “Not gonna happen.”

The stranger stopped moving. His eyes widened, the whites visible beneath the greasy bangs. “Excuse me? Did I hear you right? You know we got a gun pointed right—”

Ana’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah,” she said. “I heard you. I’m not anxious to comply.”

“Comply,” said the partner. “She’s trying to trick us with fancy words.”

Ana chuckled. “I have to know first who you work for,” she said. “Cartel or Dwellers.”

“Dwellers?” asked the stranger. “Heck naw. We’re Cartel through and thr—”

Ana pulled the trigger and put a bullet through the stranger’s left shoulder. At that same moment she lay back in the saddle, bringing baby Penny with her. It was that movement that forced her aim leftward, failing to deliver a fatal shot. It was enough, however, to drop the stranger to his knees. Ana, flat on her back, kicked her stirruped right foot upward, driving her toe through the partner’s arms and into his chin.

He lost the shotgun before he knew what had happened and stumbled backward on the verge of unconsciousness before the back of his head slammed hard into the utility pole. He slid down the pole and sank to the ground.

Ana took aim, pulled the trigger twice, and fired two shots into a tight pattern on the man’s chest before she used the reins in her left hand to pull herself upright. She found the stranger on his knees, struggling to grab for the gun in his waistband.

“Hey,” she called, drawing his attention from the gun to her face in time to deliver a lucky shot through his left eye. It jerked his head backward, his body went limp, and he collapsed to the asphalt.

Ana took a deep breath and held it. Only when she exhaled through puckered lips did she hear Penny’s wailing. The baby had lost the pacifier and no doubt was frightened by the quartet of booming shots fired not far from her face.

Ana wanted to console her child. She wanted to pull her from the pack and hold her tightly against her chest. She didn’t have time.