Sanctuary (40 page)

We flew north, away from Downtown, away from towers and smoke and fires and sirens. Away from mayhem.

And towards Katie.

Katie and her mother came over to Chase’s house for Thanksgiving. So did Lee. (His parents approved of, but did not celebrate, Thanksgiving. Cory’s parents, on the other hand, invited their whole extended family, so he couldn’t come.)

I do not cook. So my contribution was a new table that would hold us all. The Jackson tribe had grown in size considerably since their last Thanksgiving.

It was an extravagant feast, especially for me because I hadn’t attended a Thanksgiving meal since I was eighteen. Chase is weird like that; he invites everyone into his life, including the lost and lonely, like me. He even asked Carter, but never received a response.

Like many families in America, we ate and drank and laughed to intentionally spite the Chemist. There were signs that people were uniting against him. Right after he seized downtown Los Angeles, the Compton community finally united and heaved out the remnants of his forces. The citizens banded together and took back their city.

But there could be no such rebellion downtown. The people had fled and they weren’t returning. Downtown was not a besieged American city; it was an empty shell, occupied by terrorists with captives. It was a fortress pure and simple, brazenly defying the world. The hostages were not allowed to roam free; they were locked away in the towers. Several national figures were missing, including television personality Teresa Triplett and movie star Natalie North. Chase was especially upset over those two.

The Chemist was alive. He made a brief appearance after the helicopter crash. But now? No idea. Maybe here. Maybe Houston. Maybe Antarctica.

I snuck back to the wreckage to confirm Croc’s death, but I already knew the truth. I found his remains within the mangled cockpit. Carla’s body was still strapped to the burnt fuselage. She’d been brave; wish we could have helped her. I salvaged and buried Croc’s charred cowboy boots, and I wept. Sweet Croc deserved better. He was one of the few Infected with a clean and untainted soul.

I also discovered and returned Chase’s new Thunder Stick. At least that’s what I call it. It was unscathed, lodged inside a Black Hawk’s burnt carcass. Might be useful in upcoming battles.

Houston and Seattle still smoldered, their power grids and public services all decimated. The Chemist’s forces retreated after the initial attack, blending back into the population, waiting to strike again.

He had also destroyed key sections of oil pipelines coming out of Canada and Houston. Much of the country would soon experience crippling oil shortages.

Despite all the gloom, hope still rose. The world had watched his forces fail in Los Angeles. The towers still stood in direct defiance of his plans. They were enemy territory now, but they hadn’t fallen. Nor would we.

The media, the military, and the citizenry all cried out for the Outlaw and his team. Now was the time for unity. Now was the time to stand together.

And we would. Chase had decided to meet with Isaac Anderson’s select group of loyal government officials soon. No more hiding. No more secrets. No more masks.

He was going to change the world.

Anderson’s team had taken custody of Tank and several other incarcerated Infected. They also located several large stores of the super drug, and soon they’d understand what was in the mixture.

We still had a job to do, but today was for family and love. Chase and Katie glowed like twin suns orbiting each other, generating irrepressible heat and shining despite the darkness. Beauty and the beautiful beast, unable to keep hands off each other.

We had just started on chocolate pies when the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” I said. I rose from my place next to Richard and squeezed his thick shoulder before walking to the front door.

An unfamiliar man was there. A black man, about my age, with a buzzcut, sitting in an electrified wheelchair. A very impressive RV was parked on the street. Looked more like a space shuttle.

He smiled sheepishly and said, “Hey dummy. Can I come in? Chase said I was invited.”

I didn’t know the face, but I knew that voice!

“Puck!!”

The Chronicles of Martin Patterson

Emperor of the New Age

January 4. Year Two (2019).

As recorded by Teresa Triplett

We are woken in the middle of the night. The Father calls, so I dress quickly at gunpoint. My new roommate, Natalie North (perhaps the most famous hostage of all time?), is not allowed to accompany us.

I am taken into the basement of the Ritz, the hotel where I’ve been living. The Father has use of an underground labyrinth that connects him with many of the city’s more important structures; part of the maze passes below the Ritz apparently. I’m taken down corridors until I’m hopelessly lost, and then left with him.

His mania has grown. He sings and quotes poems incessantly. We hear him laughing at all hours of the night.

This chamber is dark. Only a lamp in the corner. The air reeks of metal, iron in particular. He’s gathered a macabre collection of medical equipment and technology, but I know this is not one of his fabled laboratories.

A tube connects his arm to a blood bag. He is being drained of blood every moment of the day. Bags of the stuff lay on tables, waiting to be stored or used immediately. Nearby, raw meat and fresh spinach await ingestion. One of his attendants once explained that the Father consumes over seven pounds of meat and vegetables per day, and drinks a comparable volume of water and juice. And yet he still looks like a shrunken cadaver.

The old man is shaking and sweating. His eyes are huge, unblinking. His pallor is pale, partly from the glow of the computer monitor. He giggles and whispers at the screen.

He’s looking at two digital photographs. One is a newspaper photo taken at a funeral service, zoomed in on the mourners. I know that funeral. I covered it for Channel Four News, the funeral of Hannah Walker, the beautiful blonde girl killed in Compton.

The other photo is from a local football game, with an inset profile of star quarterback Chase Jackson.

He is whispering, “…I found him…I found you, dear boy…”

The most commonly asked question I get is…

How many books will there be in the Outlaw series?

Here’s your answer:

Chase’s entire adventure will last eight books. (Maybe nine. But I think I can wrap it up in eight.) However, after Book Four the story will look dramatically different. The first four books are a mini-series within the overall story. Books Five and Six will be a miniseries. And Seven and Eight will be a miniseries. I might even label them differently.

That sounds confusing. Think of the Star Wars movies. There will be nine total movies in the Star Wars story arc, but there are three distinct trilogies within those nine.

Same with the Outlaw series.

The Outlaw is the star of the show. But it’s going to be a wild ride.

I will try to deliver two books a year until the story is done (and maybe even a few tangential short stories). Waiting a decade on one series is the worst.

Thanks for reading.

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(260) 673-5450

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Many thanks to everyone involved

- artists (Anne Pierson, Mike Corley, Jeff Brown, Nimesh Niyomal)

- test readers (Sarah, Liz, Becky, Will, Anne, and Debbie [twice!])

- formatting (Polgarus Studio)