At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (21 page)

Burnhammer regarded the highway and spotted
the beasts. She radioed Henderson, who was ahead of the column, out
of earshot, unless she wanted to yell.

An army barricade came into view, standing
between a massive intersection, where on and off-ramps connected to
the highway. Tanks, jeeps, and other vehicles waited behind the
barricade. The highway curved towards Broadway, and on mighty legs,
alions sprang from the raised road.

Both squads open fired on the beasts. More
jumped. They just kept coming. Enough of them survived the rain of
bullets, regrouping, forming a line between the barricade and us. A
scream informed the squads that more advanced at the rear.

We were trapped.

Tortilla and the twins huddled close to me.
Jacob crouched a few meters down from us.

Soldiers open fired on the alions in front
of us. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard gunfire from behind the
barricade, and I hoped reinforcements saw our situation.

Burnhammer waved us on. I took Jane’s hand,
and Tortilla grabbed Amanda, who despite her fearlessness, was on
the verge of tears. The soldiers pressed towards the barricade.
Alions and soldiers died all around. Blood sprayed and splattered
everything.

Small bright yellow balls burst forth from
alion tube-weapons. Buildings and soldiers exploded. Cars erupted
in fire.

From behind the barricade, soldiers
approached, and crossfire became a threat. Within seconds, all of
the beasts that blocked our way had perished.

“Go, go, go!” Burnhammer shouted.

I pulled on Jane but her legs were frozen. A
car near us exploded in yellow fire, and I yanked so hard on Jane’s
arm that I thought it might break off from her scrawny body.
Tortilla and Amanda raced beside us.

As we neared the barricade, I glimpsed
behind as soldiers fired from behind whatever cover they could
manage to come by.

Jacob had fallen even farther behind, close
to where we had run from, ducking at the center of a group of
soldiers. All of the soldiers had refocused their attention on to
the alions advancing up Humphrey. A soldier to the right of Jacob
fell over, blood misting Jacob’s clothes.

I yelled for Jacob to run, but he couldn’t
hear me: the gunfire drowned out my feeble voice.

A soldier motioned Jacob to make for the
barricade. Three soldiers covered him as he struggled to run.

When the twins were safely beyond the
barricade, I turned again to watch the battle. Dozens upon dozens
of alions charged up the road. Roars quaked the earth. The first
alion with a mane, resembling a male lion, galloped forth, holding
a sleek silver tube above its head with its humanlike hands. It
reminded me of a bazooka. Taller and wider, the alion instilled a
deep fear in my trembling body. It shot a blue orb from the tube,
one that resembled the yellow balls, sparkling as it flew.

In an instant, the blue orb struck Jacob. He
froze as a field of brilliant blue light encircled him. He stood
motionless. Veins of light blue crept towards his body from the
surface of the barrier. The veins pulsed, as if shocking him,
keeping him in place. Blue orbs hit the three soldiers defending
Jacob. All of them paused in suspension, as if frozen in time.

In a burst of speed, other alions bolted for
the four. As the beasts came within striking distance, the field
vanished, returning Jacob to his normal state. By then, a paw
clobbered his back, and five sharp claws pierced through his
chest.

A soldier swept me up in strong arms,
carrying me away. Screaming, I ordered to be put down.

The soldier handed me off to a burly man,
tall and solid. He held me against his chest as I fought,
wriggling, struggling against his might.

“Put me down! Put me down!”

He ignored me.

Another soldier ran up and gave the burly
man his instructions. He took me to a jeep far behind the
barricade; Tortilla and the twins sat in the back of it. He set me
down.

I took the axe from my back. “I’ll cut you
down.” My voice, a furious stream of defiance, broke upon a stolid
face and resistant ears.

“I’m not the enemy, girl. Now get your ass
in the jeep.”

“Maggy, what are you doing?” Tortilla jumped
up to the edge of the jeep’s bed. “Stop! Stop!”

“Jacob’s dead, Tortilla. Murdered. We have
to go back.”

“What can we do that the soldiers can’t,” he
said.

The soldier stared at me. “Revenge will come
for us all, girl. Store your anger for when the time comes, and
lash out then. Now is not the time.”

His words struck me down. I fell to my
knees, dropping my axe. I couldn’t stop the tears.

The next thing I knew, I was in the bed of
the jeep, and we were driving away. I looked up with blurry eyes.
Jeeps and tanks were following. Hundreds of soldiers walked behind
the column.

Tortilla wrapped an arm around me. I leaned
into his chest, and his tears fell away, soaking my hair.

I had never felt so fragile, so weak, so
helpless.

At that moment, all hope vanished within me,
and darkness swept my mind away in a tide of agony.

Darrel

M
y hand slipped over
an alion paw.

I spied Penelope’s eyes grow wide with
terror.

Pushing me down, she snagged the alion gun
resting against her left thigh. Awkwardly, she pulled down on one
of the triggers and let loose the deadly black globes.

The alion had nowhere to go. Trapped, its
blood splattered the duct walls, ceiling, and floor, along with
both of us. Red touched everything within sight.

I shuddered, dripping blood onto the floor.
It ran down into my eyes and stung. The taste of iron filled my
mouth. The foul tang mixed with foul thoughts of what swam between
my teeth. I spat.

Shaking, Penelope dropped the gun.
“Everywhere . . .” Her faint and broken whisper barely reached my
ears.

The alion twitched, struggling to breathe. A
moment later, it lay dead, eyes open and staring intentionally at
me. My stomach disliked the eerie gaze, so I crawled away, down to
the end of the duct, where it branched off in a T. “Come on,” I
choked. I cleared my throat. I really needed an inhaler, but since
we didn’t have one, I knew my only option to calm my breathing was
to get far, far away from the beast.

Penelope grabbed our gear and followed.
“That was unpleasant.”

“You can say that again,” I replied. I took
the right at the T, and the section of duct went on out of sight,
straight.

We crawled and crawled and crawled.

Scratches on my hands started to bleed. We
finally stopped when I thought I was about to keel over.

I rested my back against the duct wall.
Penelope sat across from me, drinking. “We should get some sleep,”
she said.

“I’m not sure that I can sleep,” I
responded. “I’m not sure that I want to even try.” I looked over at
her; she was covered in blood, now dry and peeling. “I think I’ll
keep watch while you sleep.”

She laughed. “You won’t last five more
minutes.”

I was panting, my eyelids were drooping, and
my head was as heavy as a sack of potatoes. I knew she was right.
“We’ll see,” was all I said.

I jerked awake. My own snoring startled me. I
didn’t know when I finally passed out, but Penelope probably had
been pretty close in her estimate. With blurry eyes, I straitened
up, squinting at her as she slept away, undisturbed by my roaring
snores. My stomach growled. For a brief second I thought about
going back to cut a flank from the dead alion, but I knew I would
get lost along the way, and after some thought, just the idea of
the rotting carcass churned my stomach.

I eyed my fingers, my mouth salivating. My
stomach growled again and a burp exploded up my throat and into the
close-quarters of the duct. I needed to find food, and fast, as I
didn’t see myself lasting too much longer, staring at each digit of
my hand.

I cleared my throat and snapped out of the
trance that had taken hold of me.

Penelope raised her head. “What?” she said
abruptly.

I tucked my hands between my thighs. “Uhrm.
I didn’t say anything.” We made eye contact. Her oak-colored irises
swept me away into a different land and time, but only for a
second, when they first locked together.

She smiled. “You were snoring. Did you know
that?”

I returned her cheerful grin. “Yeah, I
know.” I shifted to my knees. “We need to find some food before I
die.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It’s only been a
day or so.”

I stared at her. “Dramatic? When was the
last time you went without food for a day? I don’t think I ever
have.”

“I’m not saying I have, I’m just saying
we’re far from dead.”

“Maybe . . . and maybe not. It could be just
around the corner.” I pointed to the T ahead of us. “That’s not
very far.”

“Well then, hold your gun up and make sure
to give ’em hell.” She giggled. When we made it to the T, she
decided to go right, and her shoe caught my wrist.

I barely saved myself, dropping the alion
gun in a CLANG that resounded throughout the entire duct
system.

“Sorry,” Penelope said.

“It’s not your fault. I was too close.” I
picked up the gun and we moved on.

Once we passed the next fork, she chose to
take a peek into a room, quietly removing a panel. “Looks like
another quarters. Should we go down and search for food?”

I nodded. “I’m hungry enough to try
anything. Uhrm. I might even wait for the alion to return, just so
I can roast it.”

“Roast it, eh? Well, I think you would find
that troublesome without an oven.” She dipped her head down into
the room again. “Ready?”

“Yep.”

She turned around and hung her feet over the
edge of the hole. “Lower me down.”

I gripped her forearms, then dropped her as
gently as I could, but my arms shook out of control, and by the
time her feet touched the ground, they had turned to jelly.

“I’m going to rest a second. Go ahead and
look without me.”

“Are you that scared?” she asked.

I showed her my trembling hands. “I’m not
that strong. Just hold on a second and I’ll be down.” I recuperated
with my feet dangling in the hole.

“All right,” she said. Shuffling items
around on a desk, she began to scour the quarters for any evidence
of food. Finding nothing in the desk, she scooted it underneath the
open panel.

I hopped down. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said with a smirk.

Turning over the room, I finally found some
dried meat wrapped in a salt-laden towel. I bit into the tender
strip.

“What’s it taste like?” Penelope asked when
she spied me chewing it down in a gulp.

I offered her a long, thick slab. “Venison,
I think,” I replied. “But it mostly tastes like salt. The most
delicious salt I’ve ever had.”

She munched down a morsel of her own.
“That’s certain.” A huge smile of relief crossed her lips. “Maybe a
day is longer than I realized.”

I accepted the water bottle when she offered
it. The salt hurt my dry lips and mouth, and had made me incredibly
thirsty. I almost drank the whole bottle.

“Whoa, dude. We have to conserve the water.
We don’t know when we’ll find another water depot.”

I gave her back the bottle. “Sorry. I’m just
used to drinking as much as I need, or don’t need.” I wiped my
mouth clean.

Penelope stored the meat in a pocket. She
decloaked and cloaked again, so that the meat would become shielded
from watchful, hostile eyes. “Let’s go,” she said. She hopped onto
the desk and climbed up with a boost from my weak arms.

She helped me as I struggled to lift myself
back into the duct. “Thanks,” I said, coughing. “Uhrm. I need a
breather.”

Nodding, she replaced the panel, then sat
down beside me.

My heart skipped as our arms grazed. This
was the last thing I needed. My heart couldn’t take the blood
pumping through it. I cleared my throat again. I scooted away, just
so our skin wouldn’t touch again, I couldn’t risk it; my heart
would explode if it happened a second time.

She looked over at me, calm. “You
ready?”

“I guess so,” I said. My breathing was still
shallow and fast, but I had managed to compose myself a little. I
followed behind her; she was a good leader, and I didn’t mind the
view.

We crawled and crawled and crawled.

My stomach grumbled again, not satisfied
with the tiny portion I had fed it. I shook my head and focused on
crawling, ignoring my cravings as best I could. Our pace slowed,
and I could barely move, with sore arms and legs, and everything
else.

I savored our breaks, which were few and
spread out, with great long gaps of bleeding and crawling between
them.

“Are you ready to try another panel?”

I shook my head. “Nah. There’s only so much
you can stomach in a day, and who knows what we’ll stumble across,
though it’s likely to be something I don’t want to see.”

“And it may be a cache of macaroni and
cheese,” she said.

“Macaroni and cheese?”

“I don’t know. I was just saying . . . it
could be worthwhile.” She slid a panel onto the duct, whether I
wanted her to or not didn’t matter much, and she lowered her head
inside the room to get a look at what doom awaited us. She came
back up. “I don’t know what kind of room it is; it’s weird, with
bright lights and big tables. You should take a look.”

Against my better judgment, I did take a
peek. “It reminds me of a hospital,” I told her.

“I was thinking the same thing, but it’s so
foreign . . . did you see the huge tables?” she asked.

I nodded. “Well they’re big animals.”

“Let’s get a closer look,” she urged.