The Day After Never - Retribution (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 4) (32 page)

Elliot looked confused, but amenable. “Certainly. You know where I hang my hat.”

“Be by once we get settled.”

“Of course. Take your time.”

They walked the horses the rest of the way and found the house exactly as they’d left it.

“I’ve been stopping by every week to dust and make sure nobody’s squatting or anything,” Ruby said.

“Where’s Terry?” Sierra asked.

“Oh, that man spends every spare minute at the airport, fussing with one of the planes.”

“Has he gotten one running?”

“Not yet.”

“He does enjoy flying,” Sierra observed.

“He enjoys trying to fly almost as much.”

“You’re getting along?”

“Oh my, yes,” Ruby said, color flushing her cheeks. “He’s a fine man. Just a little quirky.” She took a deep breath. “But at my age, quirky’s just what the doctor ordered.”

“Thank you for taking care of Eve.”

“She’s an angel. You’re very lucky.”

“I know.”

“And you got your boy back! You must be walking on air.”

“I am. It’s like a dream come true. Or the end of a nightmare.”

“All’s well, right?”

Sierra looked through the back doorway at where Lucas was standing beside Tango, removing his saddle as the big horse nuzzled Eve, to her delight, with Ellie the pig a few feet behind her, just out of range of the stallion’s hooves. “It couldn’t be better. I just took the long way around.”

Sierra stepped from the house, walked to Lucas, and planted a kiss on his lips, taking him by surprise.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“Just ’cause.” She smiled at Eve and Tim. “I’m just really, really happy to be home, to have my family together…to be safe.”

Lucas hoisted the saddle and made for the back porch. “Can’t ask for much more.”

Sierra watched him disappear into the house and shook her head slowly. “No, I really can’t.”

Lucas showered off the road dust in icy water as they waited for the electric water heater to warm some and, after a meal of eggs Ruby had procured for them, made for Elliot’s on foot. When he arrived, Arnold, Michael, and Elliot were waiting inside, the room warm and inviting after weeks on the trail.

“Have a seat, Lucas,” Elliot said.

Lucas pulled up a chair and Elliot gave him a welcoming smile. “So, tell us all about your adventure.”

Lucas adjusted his hat and started his account at the rum factory, giving them an abridged report until he arrived at his encounter with Zach. He detailed the story Zach had told him, watching Elliot for any reaction. He didn’t have to wait long. Elliot half rose out of his chair, his face red. “That’s preposterous! The man was lying about everything.”

Lucas swallowed his doubts and continued. “I didn’t believe him. I just thought you’d want to know what you’re up against.”

“These scoundrels are absolutely diabolical. They’ll stop at nothing,” Elliot proclaimed.

Lucas eyed him. “No, I don’t expect they will.” He hesitated. “Which brings me to Whitely.”

Elliot’s ruddy complexion blanched. “Whitely!”

Lucas nodded. “That’s right. He was there. The new head of the Crew sent him. He helped us escape, but he compromised himself in the process.”

“He must have had good reason. They must know the vaccine’s made it into distribution, so he doesn’t need to stay on site any longer.”

“Could be. But I got the impression that this is all bigger than the vaccine. Zach’s group is playing for keeps, and they’re in the big league. I don’t know what the real agenda is, but that part of the story rang true.” Lucas told them about Zach’s claim that the Illuminati had at least one enclave that had survived the collapse.

Arnold’s face tightened with a frown. “Doesn’t surprise me. We’ve all heard the rumors. Figures the scum that ran the world into a ditch would look out for themselves first.” He sat forward. “Duke radioed in a few days ago. Said a rider with Crew markings was nosing around. So they haven’t given up.”

Michael shook his head. “But the real question is, what’s the Illuminati’s end game? What’s their objective? Any ideas?”

Lucas shook his head. “World domination? The return of the antichrist? Who knows?”

It was Elliot’s turn to frown. “You’re not far off. Perhaps all of the above. Those people are the epitome of evil, make no mistake.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to know a lot about them.”

Elliot’s demeanor changed back to his jovial self. “Oh, it used to be an area of interest of mine back before the lights went out. I collected conspiracy theories like boys collect baseball cards. Many had the same theme – a secret group that engineered outcomes to achieve their goals and ran the governments of the world from the shadows. There’s some truth to it, that I can tell – all the world’s central banks, with only a few exceptions, were owned by the same people, and so were the media companies and the arms manufacturers and drug companies. I used to say that if it was a conspiracy, it was one hidden in plain sight.” He eyed Lucas thoughtfully. “Their aim was always to create a one world government they controlled, where the world’s population were their serfs. It’s not that odd that at least some of them survived with their megalomania intact.”

Lucas finished his account with the story of their trip back. When he was done, Michael looked puzzled.

“Back to Whitely. The last you saw of him was in the forest?” he asked.

“That’s right. He told me not to worry about him – to mind my own business, basically.”

“That sounds like Whitely,” Elliot agreed.

Lucas was going to ask how Elliot knew him, but Arnold interrupted his train of thought. “All of this underscores the importance of finding another hub, though. The sooner the vaccine’s in widespread national distribution, the sooner nobody’s going to much care about where we got to.”

Michael nodded. “I never thought I’d say this, but I completely agree.”

The meeting broke up, and Lucas returned to the house to find Tim and Eve helping Sierra make it livable again, both children smudged with dirt and Eve holding a plastic dustpan, a look of distaste on her face. When she heard him come in, Sierra looked up from the kitchen sink and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.

“There’s spiders everywhere,” Eve announced.

Sierra smiled and raised an eyebrow at Lucas. He considered the tableau, and for a moment a memory of his wife flitted through his mind, nodding as though everything would be fine. He blinked the mirage away and then removed his hat and closed the door behind him before coming over to them with his fiercest scowl in place.

“Spiders, huh? We’ll just see about that.”

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The Day After Never – Retribution
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(Book IV in the Day After Never series.)

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Turn the page to read an excerpt from

The Goddess Legacy

Excerpt from
The Goddess Legacy

© Russell Blake 2016 – all rights reserved

Chapter 1

Old Delhi, India

A pall of exhaust hung over India’s capital city, a hazy cloud that lingered in the still night air like a toxic mist. Everett Carson, lightheaded from the third celebratory cocktail he’d downed against his better judgment only minutes before, walked unsteadily down what passed for a sidewalk, dodging piles of refuse. The restaurant’s festive lights receded in the gloom behind him, and as he made his way down the dark street he realized that it was later than he’d thought, his meeting having taken considerably longer than planned. Still, it had been worth it, and now that the question of financing was answered, he was tantalizingly close to his objective.

The area was deserted; the daytime crowds had vanished as the sun sank into the horizon, leaving the street eerily silent. His footsteps sounded unsteady to his ear, and he picked up his pace, wary of inviting unwanted attention in a district that could get ugly at a moment’s notice.

Two men in dark robes stepped from a doorway halfway down the narrow block, and Carson’s stomach tightened. He told himself that he was too close to the main boulevard for there to be any danger, but his breath caught in his throat when he got a better look at the approaching figures, their onyx eyes glinting in the faint light from a passing car and their body language radiating menace. Adrenaline flooded his senses at the urgent determination in their stride, and he realized belatedly that he was anything but safe on the empty sidewalk.

Carson made a snap decision and darted between two cars. A loud honk blared from his right as he stepped into the street and narrowly dodged the front fender of a sedan barreling down on him. He cursed and skirted an overloaded truck lumbering along in the opposite direction, laborers on the running boards gripping the roof rack for support, and then continued across once the vehicle passed.

He hopped across a wide puddle and almost slipped when he landed hard, wrenching his ankle. He winced but kept moving, and when he reached the far curb, glanced over his shoulder.

The men were nowhere to be seen.

Carson shook his head to clear it and exhaled as he gingerly stepped onto the uneven concrete rise. A stream of noxious fluid, the surge the last of the runoff from a late afternoon cloudburst, burbled in the gutter around a clot of trash. A figure stepped into his path from the gloom and Carson stiffened. The man’s hand was outstretched, blocking Carson’s way.

“A few rupees, mister?” a sandpaper voice pleaded in heavily accented English.

Carson’s nose wrinkled at the stench drifting from the beggar, a rancid combination of filth, sour sweat, and decay. The vagrant eyed him hopefully through milky eyes, his jaundiced skin the texture of old leather, his trembling arm little more than bones and sinew. Carson pushed past, leaving the beggar leaning on a makeshift crutch fashioned from a broom handle, the soiled bandages that enveloped his stump of a left leg dotted with flies.

Carson’s pulse thudded in his ears as he willed himself calm, chastising himself for allowing his imagination to get the better of him. The main avenue was only two more blocks, and he’d be there in no time. He could easily do this.

Running footfalls thudded in his wake as he turned the corner, and his relief dissolved into fear – the city had a deserved reputation as treacherous for the unwary. He looked around for a taxi, but there were no cars on this street, and he swore under his breath at his carelessness. He’d dropped his guard for only a moment, but that had been enough in a town that offered no quarter. His pale complexion announced him as easy prey, a visitor in a country where he didn’t belong, and now his pursuers were closing in, no doubt planning to mug him.

Carson hurried along the narrow strip of sidewalk toward the far intersection. The long block seeming to stretch endlessly before him, leaving him to navigate around muddy gaps in the concrete where the pavement had washed away. He dared a look behind him but didn’t see anything other than iron barred windows and shadowy doorways, and he slowed as he quelled the panic he’d succumbed to.

What was wrong with him?

It wasn’t like he was helpless – he’d spent his life in the military, where he’d seen enough combat to fuel decades of sleepless nights with the phantoms of his squad mates and those he’d gunned down. Even now he cut an imposing figure for a man of his years, his silver hair cropped close to his skull, his shoulders square, frown lines scoring a seasoned face beneath hard cobalt eyes. Any thieves foolhardy enough to tackle him would be in for an unpleasant surprise, he assured himself, although the coil of anxiety in his gut twisted tighter as he strode past crumbling, graffiti-marred façades.

Carson swerved abruptly, narrowly avoiding a pile of cow dung in his path, a regular consequence of the sacred beasts that roamed unfettered even in the cosmopolitan areas. He skirted the lump and stopped in his tracks when another figure appeared from the shadows ahead of him, moving with a cautious precision that he instantly recognized as professional.

He looked around for anything he could use as a weapon, but saw nothing. Carson quickly calculated the distance to the next street and his odds of dodging the newcomer, but dismissed it. Soles pounding on the street behind him decided his course, and he ran to a dark opening between two buildings – a pedestrian walkway between deteriorating tenements. He sprinted down the muddy track, and then skidded to a stop when he came face-to-face with a massive head, its baleful eyes staring at him with bovine indifference.