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Authors: Paul Kane

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Hooded Man

BOOK: Hooded Man
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AN OMNIBUS OF POST-APOCALYPTIC NOVELS

HOODED

MAN

PAUL KANE

 

 

ABADDONBOOKS.COM

 

An Abaddon Books™ Publication

www.abaddonbooks.com

[email protected]

 

This omnibus published in 2013 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

 

Editor-in Chief: Jonathan Oliver

Commissioning Editor: David Moore

Cover Art: Mark Harrison

Original Series Cover Art: Mark Harrison

Design: Simon Parr

Marketing and PR: Michael Molcher

Publishing Manager: Ben Smith

Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

The Afterblight Chronicles™ created by Simon Spurrier & Andy Boot

 

Arrowhead
copyright © 2008 Rebellion.

Broken Arrow
copyright © 2009 Rebellion.

‘Servitor’ copyright © 2009 Rebellion.

‘Signs and Portents’ copyright © 2009 Rebellion.

‘Perfect Presents’ copyright © 2009 Rebellion.

Arrowland
copyright © 2010 Rebellion.

All rights reserved.

 

The Afterblight Chronicles™, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

 

ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-576-6

ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-577-3

 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

 

 

The Afterblight Chronicles Series

 

O
MNIBUS
E
DITIONS

 

America

School’s Out Forever

Hooded Man

 

I
NDIVIDUAL
T
ITLES

 

The Culled

by Simon Spurrier

 

Kill Or Cure

by Rebecca Levene

 

Dawn Over Doomsday

by Jasper Bark

 

Death Got No Mercy

by Al Ewing

 

Blood Ocean

by Weston Ochse

 

Arrowhead

Broken Arrow

Arrowland

by Paul Kane

 

School’s Out

Operation Motherland

Children’s Crusade

by Scott K. Andrews

 

CONTENTS

 

 

Introduction
by Jonathan Oliver

 

Arrowhead

 

‘Servitor’

 

Broken Arrow

 

‘Perfect Presents’

 

‘Signs and Portents’

 

Arrowland

 

The Chronology of
The Afterblight Chronicles

 

 

Also by Abbadon Books

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

A
S MUCH AS
The Afterblight Chronicles
are a series of action-packed novels set in the aftermath of the apocalypse, as much as they are about cultists with guns, heroes with attitude and epic journeys across the wastelands of a world gone to hell, they are also about legends.

For in the ashes of Earth, new legends will be born, as those who have survived seek to put back together the broken pieces.

But what we have here is not only a legend, he is a legend reborn.

I’m from Robin Hood country myself, having been born and raised in Nottingham, so I’m somewhat familiar with the stories of the Hooded Man and his coterie of rogues. So when Paul Kane, a writer whose work I was familiar with from horror fandom, came to me with the idea of a post-apocalyptic Robin Hood, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Paul has steeped himself in the myths and legends of Sherwood, but what he gives us here is a fresh take on a familiar figure. He reminds us why certain legends endure and his novels in the series speak about the need for heroes, and what heroes are, in a way that raises this trilogy above your run-of-the-mill action adventure.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of thrilling escapes, frantic gun-play and brilliantly-executed set pieces within these pages, there’s lots and lots of that. But Robert is far more than a hero that tackles violence with violence – at the heart of his crusade is a desire for justice and fairness to return to a wrecked society.

So these then are the new legends of the Hooded Man, a hero for the end-times.

 

Jonathan Oliver

Oxford, March 2013

 

 

For Mum and Dad who helped me find my path through the forest, and for my darling Marie who coaxed me out of it.

 

 

The spirit of Robin Hood

Lives forever in Sherwood Forest

And in the hearts of those who seek him...

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

T
HE ARROWHEAD EMBEDDED
itself in the wall just millimetres from his left temple.

Thomas Hinckerman had screwed up his eyes as the crossbow was raised, flinching only slightly when he heard the impact; in one way relieved to still be alive, in another wishing this ordeal would be over soon, one way or the other. The apple on top of his head wobbled slightly. There was a wetness running down his face; he assumed it was sweat. But when he opened his eyes and looked down – carefully, so as not to dislodge the fruit he was balancing – he saw the spots of red on the floor. The bolt had nicked his skin...

And seconds later there was pain.

Not that he could feel it much – this latest wound paled into insignificance compared with his others: the bullet hole in his shoulder, for example, the fingernails dangling off, pulled with pliers, the missing teeth, or how about the cigar burns on his stomach? Still, he’d fared better than Gary and Dan. Their bodies were still cooling on the floor near the entrance to the station.

It had been his idea initially, taken from those stories of refugees trying to enter Britain simply by walking, long before the virus came and took its toll. Before the Cull. Back then, those people had wanted in, but now it seemed like a much better idea to get out of the country before things grew even worse.

Thomas suggested it to Gary, a former scrap metal dealer, and Dan, who used to be a butcher, who both felt the same. He’d met them at the local impromptu meetings early in the Cull, when everyone was still trying to figure out what could be done about their loved ones, their neighbours, those who were dying all around them. They weren’t the kind of folk Thomas would have mixed with before all this, not the sort of men you’d see hanging out at the library where he had worked. But fate had thrown them together, and they’d stuck like glue: through all the madness that had followed.

Now they were dead. Just like he would be soon. Thomas was under no illusions about that, not after he’d seen them murdered in cold blood. His last memories of the men he’d trekked thirty-one miles with, sharing adversities he never would have thought possible, were Dan’s brains exploding all over his own shirt, feet still twitching as he hit the ground, and Gary dancing like a puppet as he was riddled with bullets from a machine gun.

The three of them had emerged from the tunnel and into the station at Calais that morning, their torches almost out of batteries, supplies exhausted a day ago, glad to be free, glad to be back above ground. They’d passed dormant trains, their yellow noses rusting, glass at the front smashed. They’d seen no one, not until they reached the station. There Gary spotted a lone figure sitting on one of the benches inside the foyer.

They must have been watching from the start, though. As the trio walked over to make contact, Dan was already dropping, a bullet coming out of nowhere to blow half his head away. And then the other men emerged – a half dozen or more, heavily-armed; one with silver hair carrying what looked like a sniper’s rifle. That’s when they’d pulled Gary’s strings...

They’d been waiting, too, he found out. Waiting for someone like him to come. Thomas had been left alive – just clipped with a bullet – to tell them what he knew.

He was dragged to his feet by two men, one with a paunch, the other smoking a cigar. Their leader wasn’t a huge man, but carried himself well. He had the air of someone much larger. He was dressed in grey and black combats, and was wearing sunglasses. When he took them off and stared into Thomas’s face, he saw that the man’s eyes were just as black as his glasses. There were jewelled rings on most of his fingers. He spoke with a French accent, and his first question was: “Are you in pain, Englishman?” When Thomas nodded, the man smiled with teeth as yellow as the noses of those trains. Then he stuck two of his ringed fingers into the hole in Thomas’s shoulder. His whole body jerked, but he was held tightly by the men on either side.

BOOK: Hooded Man
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