The New World: Book 7 of the After The Event Series Page 7

  “With that said,” Adam said, trying to hide his smile, “you can allow yourself to have fun every now and then. You can be self-sufficient and still take time to enjoy life.”

  “But I don’t want to play with them. They talk about dumb things. Things that don’t matter.”

  “Probably true, but they still have to be a little more fun to play with then people like me.”

  “I don’t know what I am,” she said suddenly.

  Adam was quiet for a moment, then he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Nobody does. Even before the world went dark people were trying to figure their place in the world. That just means you’re human.”

  Ally felt tears beginning to form and put up her wall. Children cried, little girls cried. She was neither of those things.

  “There aren’t many things I know,” Adam started.

  “I know.”

  “BUT I know what it is like searching for your place in the world. If it makes you feel better, you’ll always have a place in our family.”

  Ally smiled. “I better. Who else is going to hunt for you and watch your back?”

  “Exactly. I didn’t say it wasn’t self-serving,” Adam said, returning the smile. “Come on, we still have a long day ahead of us.”

  Ben

  The sounds of gunfire erupted all around him. Ben watched as the missiles rained down on New York City, destroying everything they touched. He fired his gun up in the air as if the bullets could stop what was coming. The gunfire grew louder and he soon realized it wasn’t coming from his gun. He opened his eyes into pure darkness just as the truck swerved to the right, sending him and the others end over end to the other side. He heard the brakes of their truck squeal right before there was a loud crash and for a moment he felt like he was floating. It lasted for only a moment and then he felt his body flung across the trailer and the world went black.

  He heard gunfire but wasn’t sure if it was coming from right next to him or from a distance. He opened his eyes and saw the moon shining high above him. He realized for just a moment that he shouldn’t be able to see the moon.

  The sound of shouting floated to him and he felt someone grab him underneath the shoulders. As he was dragged through the grass he watched the moon peer down at them. The person dragging him stopped and dropped him on the ground as he opened fire toward whatever he was firing at. Ben looked back at the remains of the trailer. It had flipped, several times by the look of it. It was laid out on its side and large chunks of the siding were torn off. His unit was still in there. Ben started to lift himself up to get to them when the same hands returned and began to drag him again. He tried reaching up to stop the person but his hands remained flopped down at his side. He was so tired. Ben closed his eyes to concentrate and gather his strength. They remained closed.

  Alec

  The truck rumbled down the desolate snow-covered road. Landon drove, not saying a word as usual, and Trevor sat in the middle, staring ahead quietly. Winter had come quickly. The temperature dropped within a couple of days and then the snow followed shortly thereafter. There had been a time when Alec didn’t know if the settlement would be able to survive winter; now they barely missed a beat. Wood, heat and food were plentiful. New Hope was a self-sustained community. Alec couldn’t help but feel proud.

  It had been Noah who had reached out to them, asking if they were interested in trading. The man had been honest in his message that they needed additional food to help out Columbia for the winter. The Council meeting had been short. They all agreed there was enough food to spare. The only contention had been whether or not they should bring up their newest issue. Several livestock in Centralia had gone missing in the last month. Not missing in the sense they had come out and found bloody remains, which suggested a coyote attack, but entirely missing, as if they had been stolen. They all suspected the same group but no one felt comfortable saying with certainty it was Dante and his men. No one but Whitford, that is.

  They pulled up the same road with the line of vehicles blocking their path. Guards were still stationed out there, bundled up in layers of clothes, with two large barrels filled with fire warming them. They saw Landon and the truck coming and had already moved everything out of the way as they approached. They pulled past the roadblock down the winding road and then pulled into the same side entrance of the building.

  Noah welcomed them warmly as they entered his office, handing both Trevor and Alec a cup when they entered. “Remember a little thing called hot cocoa?”

  Alec looked down at his warm mug and saw a vision from his past. “It can’t be.”

  “Enjoy,” Noah said as he sat down on his couch and welcomed them over.

  Before Alec took a single step he took a sip and felt the warm, chocolaty liquid glide down his throat. For a moment he was sitting in front of the TV with his mother, Joseph, Ben and Ally and they were all getting ready to watch a movie, then just as quickly he was slammed back to this reality.

  “Memories can’t do some things justice, am I right?” Noah said as he noticed Alec’s reaction.

  Alec and Trevor sat down the couch next to Noah while he took another sip out of his own mug.

  “Can’t I get you all anything to eat?” They declined so he waved Landon out. “I appreciate you all taking the time to come out here. I take it you understand what we are looking for.”

  “Yes,” Trevor said, sitting down his mug. “And to put you at ease, we do have extra food we can trade.”

  Noah took in a deep breath and smiled. The man had a red plaid shirt that appeared to be ironed and relatively new, as the color was still bright. “That is good news. I would have understood if you didn’t. Winter is a tough time anymore. What exactly are you all looking for?”

  “Building supplies,” Trevor said. They had all agreed if there was a need greater than medicine, that was it. They had wood and they had space but their supplies had been exhausted building houses for their people and repairing the existing structures. “Nails, bricks, hammers--if it can be used to repair or build a house, we are in need.”

  Noah clapped his hands together loudly. “That is something we can spare. When this city fell into chaos every grocery and drug store was looted before the dust could settle. But you know this city had more hardware stores than it did grocery stores? And just about everyone ignored all the valuable supplies that were just sitting there.” Noah laughed again and took another quick sip of his mug. “We should have plenty to last you all for a great while.”

  “Sounds like we have an agreement,” Trevor said, reaching out his hand.

  Noah grasped it and gave it a firm shake. “Yes, we do.” He turned to his door. “Landon!” A few seconds later Landon walked into the room. “I need you to take Trevor to storage room 3. He needs to pick out what exactly they need.”

  “Yes sir,” Landon said.

  “If you’d like, Alec, you can stay up here with me. No need for you to go all the way down there and I wouldn’t mind talking to you for a little while,” Noah said, looking to both Alec and Trevor.

  “Not a problem,” Trevor said. “It shouldn’t take me that long to see what will work.”

  “Sure,” Alec said, sitting back on the couch.

  Noah got up and walked over to his desk and grabbed a paper bag from the corner of it. He peeked inside and smiled then walked over and handed it to Alec. “Consider it a welcome back gift.” Noah sat down across from him with a grim look on his face. “I can’t imagine the things you had to go through to get back to your people.”

  Alec opened up the crinkled bag and saw a bottle. He pulled it out and wrinkled his brow.

  “It’s scotch. Not just any scotch, actually; this is the good stuff. The stuff neither you nor I probably would have been able to afford in the old world.”

  “Thanks,” Alec said as he placed the bottle back inside the bag. “But why?”

  “When your friend Trevor was feeling me out, trying to make sure we were good people, he talked a
lot about your settlement and a lot about you. He talked about your sacrifices and everything you did to protect your people. I respected you well before I ever met you.”

  Alec took in a deep breath and shook his head. “Things were never as black and white as Trevor probably made them out to be.”

  “There was nothing black and white about your situation, from what he told me. I wouldn’t have believed him if he had tried to tell it any differently. Things seem stable here right now but there was a time when every day was a battle. I lost good people and did things that made me uncomfortable, but I did them so we would have a better tomorrow. I think you understand that burden.”

  Alec didn’t say anything.

  “I heard you all had visitors from a nearby town?”

  Alec looked up, surprised.

  “Whitford mentioned it to Landon when he came to propose another trade envoy. Everything ok? Need any help?”

  Alec shook his head no. “Things will be ok. We’re just trying to come to an understanding.”

  Noah stared at him for a moment then shook his head slowly. “Let me know if you all need any assistance. I could always spare a few guys to help defend. I consider you all trading partners and good people. Columbia needs as many of those as we can get.”

  “I understand.” Alec placed the bag next to him on the couch. “What did you do before this all happened?”

  Noah took another sip from his mug then sat it down. “Does it matter?”

  Alec frowned. “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “How does the job you used to have, or even the person you used to be, matter to what you are now?”

  Alec thought back to how he was before.

  Noah continued, “We didn’t get here because it was the natural progression of our lives. We are here because civilization as we knew it came to an end. We had been raised to live a certain way in order to survive and within an instant all those rules changed. What we were before the darkness has nothing to do with who we are after.”

  “I have a hard time thinking the past doesn’t matter.”

  “I wouldn’t say the past doesn’t matter,” Noah said. “My point is that when there is such a dynamic shift, people are changed just as dynamically. Think about one of those fat cats on Wall Street. One of those guys probably had more money than he could spend in a lifetime and all the power that comes with it, but a second after the power goes out you know what he has?”

  “What?”

  “Just as much as the bum on the street corner a few blocks from him. Everyone became equal. A CEO can become a man begging for food on the street corner and a grocery store clerk can become the leader of a nation.”

  Alec raised an eyebrow.

  “No, I wasn’t a grocery store clerk,” Noah said with a chuckle. “Our present and future are important because that is how we create our legacy. That thing we leave in our past for all future generations to follow and remember.”

  Alec drank the last of his coca and sat it down on the table. He ran his hands over his face. “I’ve never really thought about my legacy.”

  “No reason to. I’m sure up until a few months ago you weren’t even sure you would survive the night. But New Hope is a part of your legacy. The generations that come from that place and its transformation are all going to stem from the seed you planted. That is what’s important.”

  “And this place. This is your legacy?”

  “The beginning of it,” Noah said, sitting back. “We control maybe seventy-five percent of Columbia through power and influence. We are going to secure this city and build it back up. From there we will reach out, bringing peace and prosperity to all of Missouri, and then beyond.” Noah raised his mug in Alec’s direction. “To our legacy.”

  Alec picked up his empty mug and raised it toward Noah. “To our legacy.”

  Ben

  He felt the warm sun on his face and for a moment he was back with Elly, lying outside her house. He reached his hand out, searching for her soft skin but she wasn’t there. What happened came flooding back to him, causing his eyes to shoot open, and he sat up quickly. He was lying on an old porch swing on a decaying deck. A grizzled man sat on the porch in front of him with an old hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. The man saw him stir and raised a hand.

  “Calm down, I’m a friend.”

  Ben looked around. “The rest of my unit, where are they?”

  The grizzled man turned away from him. “Hey, tell Banner he’s awake.” He turned back to Ben. “Sorry, we weren’t able to get to them. The only reason Thomas was able to grab you is because you were thrown from the trailer.”

  Ben started to get up from the swing when his body informed him of what he had been through. Pain shot up his back and his left shoulder screamed out in pain. He fell back into the swing and closed his eyes, waiting for the surge of pain to subside.

  “Yeah, might want to take your time getting up,” the man said.

  “Who are you all?” Ben asked as he opened his eyes.

  “You can call me Thomas,” the man said as he dropped the rifle and extended his hand.

  Ben sat up slowly and shook it. “My name is Ben.”

  “We are what is left of Fort Stevens,” a man said as he walked into sight. The man had on worn green military fatigues and an old cowboy hat. He smiled as he approached. “From the looks of you, we are on the same side.”

  “I need to get to my unit. How many of you are there?” Ben asked.

  Banner stopped at the edge of the porch. “In time. I have men on their way back here to help us resupply and then we will try to catch up with them.”

  “We need to get moving then,” Ben said as he slowly got to his feet. “The longer we wait the farther away they are getting.”

  “Even if they were right in front of us we wouldn’t be able to stop them. We have maybe ten bullets between the eight of us.”

  Ben looked out at the overgrown yard and the house that looked like it would fall down if a stiff breeze blew through. “Is this your base?”

  “Not hardly,” Banner said, chuckling. “This is just one of the thousands of abandoned properties around this area. We needed a place to regroup and figured this place was as good as any.”

  Ben allowed himself to sit back down and the pain in his lower back disappeared. “What in the hell happened last night?”

  “We had planned on taking out the convoy as they passed but we underestimated their firepower. Usually they don’t have more than a dozen or so guys that make these runs but there was easily double that amount with them.”

  “You all have been fighting them?” Ben asked.

  “Not until yesterday,” Banner said as he leaned up against a wall. “We didn’t have the manpower or firepower to match them.”

  “How the hell is that?”

  “The Chinese hit Fort Stevens and took it for their own. A couple of units survived and fled out into the city to do what we could to make life difficult for them, then one day they just took off. Problem is, we weren’t the first ones to get back to Fort Stevens.”

  “The Forgotten got there first.”

  “What eventually became The Forgotten did. They raided the base and took all the gear that was left over from both us and the Chinese. By the time this happened we barely had any supplies as it was so we didn’t stand a chance against them, not that we didn’t try.” Banner looked over to Thomas, who just shook his head. “They don’t have any training or discipline but there were a lot of them and they have some powerful military hardware…we lost a lot of people. From there they began reaching out to other settlements for resources, recruits and ultimately sacrifices.”

  “Why didn’t you all call for help?”

  “Isn’t that why you are here?” Banner asked. “If you didn’t get our messengers, how did you know about The Forgotten?”

  “We were sent here to find a lost recon unit. We found out about The Forgotten when we were captured and turned over to them.”

  �
�Jesus,” Banner said, pushing off of the wall. “We don’t have any working Comms so we sent messengers out to alert Command and find us reinforcements. Does your Command know about them?”

  “Not yet,” Ben said. “We have… had…a radio but it was confiscated by the town that handed us over to them.”

  “They depend on The Forgotten for protection and The Forgotten make sure they don’t have enough weapons to stand against them. This means we can roll in there and get it back fairly easily.”

  “I’m not turning away from my unit.”

  Banner nodded. “I understand. There is an outpost a few miles from here. Chances are that is where they will stop to regroup. We will resupply and hit them as they leave there. Still doesn’t make sense why they had so many men.”

  “Is the Prophet their leader?”

  Banner looked up quickly. “You know about the Prophet? How?”

  “He was the one that came and collected us.”

  Thomas stood up quickly. “You mean he was in the convoy we attacked?”

  Ben looked from Thomas to Banner and then nodded yes.

  “Get the men ready,” Banner said to Thomas. “That explains why there were so many of them. The arrogant son-of-a-bitch left the safety of the base to come out here in the wild. Dammit, we nearly had him. That’s going to make it a lot harder to hit them again.”

  “Why?”

  “They have radios and I doubt that man left the base without having at least one on him. I’m sure as soon as they drove us off he began calling for backup.”

  “Who the hell is he?” Ben asked.

  “A nut job. An albino nut job at that. I don’t know what he was before but he has transformed himself into a cult leader that has attracted people too damn dumb to know better.” Banner paused for a moment. “He is smart, I’ll give him that. He placed men in certain settlements to spread rumors of what he was and what he has. He even got his hand on fake guns and set it up where his moles attempted to shoot him with blanks. Of course nothing happened and you can only imagine what that did. Now people follow him or fear him--either way, he gets what he wants.”