Wasteland Rules: Kill or Be Killed (The World After Book 1) (5 page)

June 10, 2029

Near Dodge City, KS

  Derek spotted their pursuers about mid-afternoon.
He and Rora had been making very good time on the highway. He knew it was a
risk, but time was of the essence. He had to get the device in time and get
paid. He saw the small dust cloud in the side view mirror and watched as it got
closer. Based on its size and speed it was getting closer quickly and they
would probably not be able to outrun it. He had detoured off of the highway to
see if it wasn’t really after them, but the cloud had followed. As the cloud
grew closer and he could see distinct shapes in the dust, he cursed. “Burners!”

  Behind him on the bike with her arms wrapped
around him, Rora could hear his curse. He could feel her shift and glance
backwards. Then lean forward to ask him, “What are burners?”

  “Young punks on sports bikes. The modern version
of a biker gang. Very aggressive and violent. They used to just race bikes but
they started becoming gang related in the nineties. After the Collapse, they
took advantage of their speed and mobility to prey on survivors and then race
away.”

  “Why are they chasing us?”

  “We probably just passed through their territory
and they want tribute or worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “You are a very pretty girl…”

  She didn’t respond to that and Derek figured she
was digesting what he said. He throttled the bike to max speed and started
looking for somewhere to lose their pursuers. He turned the bike onto
increasingly smaller roads hoping to maybe lose them. But the open terrain and
lack of tree cover was making that almost impossible.

  “Can we lose them?” Rora asked him.

  “Probably not, we need to find a good place to
make a stand since they will have us outnumbered.”

  Derek saw a sign for a town in a few miles and
decided that was their best option. Maybe the town had some defenses and would
make them too difficult of a target for the burners. Meanwhile the burners were
getting closer and closer. They burst out into a wide open plain and he could
see the town in the distance. It was small and looked like it lacked any walls
or fences. Not looking promising, but they had no other options.

    As they drove along the highway, Derek
questioned Rora. “Do you know how to shoot?”

  “Of course not, guns are dangerous. They kill
people.” She said with a sanctimonious tone.

  “I noticed you didn’t have any problem with me
killing people to save your ass.” He snapped at her.

  She pouted, her feelings slightly hurt. “Just
because it is necessary doesn’t make it right. Thou shalt not kill.”

  “You were lucky enough to have lived a sheltered
life ignorant of the horrors of the world. In the real world you have to follow
Rule #4, a gun is the great equalizer. It makes the weak strong so that the
strong don’t prey on them.”

  Bullets zipped by the bike and Rora grabbed
tighter to Derek. The burners were getting close enough to shoot at them and
the town was still some distance away. But bullets were too precious for him to
just fire back blindly. A shot shattered his side view mirror and she screamed.
He hoped she wasn’t hit, he needed that box number. He felt her tug on the left
side of his jacket and he glanced back to see her pointing off to the left.

  In the distance, but rapidly getting closer, were
the black clouds of an impending storm. Derek glanced over again and saw that
the winds from the storm were pushing a massive and growing dust cloud in front
of it. Since the Aftermath, violent dust storms and lightning storms had become
common. The barren plains provided excellent fuel for the storms and they could
scour an unprotected person down to the bones. Even if you were protected you
could still choke to death on the dust and sand. The dust and sand could also
choke a vehicle and disable it.

  They needed to seek cover or be killed in the
storm. If they could get to the town, the dust storm would provide time to
hide. The burners would have to take cover as well, and would be more occupied
with that then shooting Derek and Rora. Once in the town and off the bikes, he
had the advantage and he could pick them off. Hopefully a few of them would get
caught in the storm and killed, increasing his odds.

  The volume of gunfire increased, shattering the
tail light but miraculously not hitting them. Derek scanned the town for any
shelter from the impending storm and the burners. As they hit the edge of town,
he saw it. What looked like an old hotel had front doors hanging off their
hinges and the doorway beyond was open. The town itself looked abandoned, as so
many were after the Collapse. It was all run down and overgrown with weeds.

   The storm was almost on them and the gunfire had
stopped as the burners were paying more attention to the storm then Derek and Rora.
He roared down the main street and angled for the hotel. He yelled for her to
hang on as he drove up the front steps and into the building. Two burners came
racing in behind him right as the dust storm filled the street and obscured
everything outside, presumably catching the other burners without cover.
Without cover, they would either choke to death or at least have their bikes
disabled.

  Derek leapt off his bike and drew his double barreled
shotgun in his right hand and his Glock in the left. He stepped in front of Rora
and aimed at the two burners. They were also off their bikes and pointing
submachine guns at him. Both were dressed in green motorcycle leathers and
green helmets. Derek noticed their bikes were also green. Must be their gang
color. All four stood almost frozen in the foyer of the old hotel. It was a
classic standoff and the tension was palpable.

  Derek addressed the burners, “It’s not worth it.
Your friends are caught up in the storm, maybe dead. It’s just us and I’ll kill
at least one of you, if not both. Just walk away.”

  The two burners glanced at each other. The one on
the left slowly lifted his helmet revealing himself to be Hispanic and spoke,
“It’s nothing personal man. Give us the girl and you can walk.”

   “Not gonna happen, she’s with me.”

  Before the burner could respond a steel gate slid
down from the ceiling with a bang blocking the doorway. Startled, the two
burners turned towards the entrance. Derek cursed as he realized what had
happened. They were all now trapped in the hotel and in grave danger.

  Derek broke the stunned silence, “Gentlemen we are
in a Night Children lair, we need to work together to get out alive.”

  The burners both turned towards him and took off
their helmets. He could see that the other burner was white. The white one
addressed him, “We don’t need your help. We can get out on our own.”

  “Yeah, it’s just a security system. There is no
such thing as Night Children.” The other chimed in.

  “What are Night Children?” Rora asked quietly.

  Derek answered her, “Cannibals. They trap people
in their lairs, kill them, cook them, and eat them. Generations of entire
families have been practicing this since the Dark Ages. They were always hiding
in the shadows of society, but their numbers have grown significantly since the
Collapse. They are called Night Children because they hide during the day and
usually live underground. They used to only take runaways, lone travelers, and
street people. People who wouldn’t be missed. But since the Collapse they will
take anyone who falls into their traps.”

  “That’s crap man!” The white burner insisted,
“That’s an urban legend.”

  “Yeah!” The other burner agreed.

  Derek tried to convince them, “You need to believe
it. We need to work together and be extra careful. This whole building is
probably booby trapped. We need each other to get out alive.”

  “Whatever, you go look upstairs and I’ll check out
the kitchen.” The Hispanic burner told the white one.

  He nodded and headed upstairs gun first. He headed
up one of sets of stairs located on the sides of the foyer. The foyer was a
large rectangular room with the entrance at one end and a set of double doors
at the other. A set of stairs was on each side leading up to a balcony with an
opening to a hallway behind it. A doorway was situated at the bottom of each
set of stairs with another doorway on each side below the staircase. Derek
looked around and could see the place was old. The wallpaper was curling and
there was mold on the ceiling and walls. But there was no dust or cobwebs.

  His examination was interrupted by a scream which
was abruptly cut off by a loud thud. Derek glanced at the burner who had stayed
in the foyer. The burner turned pale and panicked. He ran towards the double
doors and burst through. As he cleared the doorway, a panel with spikes swung
down from the ceiling and impaled him with a sickening meaty thunk. He gurgled
once and died. Rora started screaming.

  Derek tried to calm her down. She would be
impossible to save if she was frozen in terror. He grabbed her by the shoulders
and looked right into her eyes.

  “Rora, calm down. Screaming isn’t going to help. I
know you are scared, but we won’t make it out of here unless we keep our wits
about us. Okay?”

  She kept whimpering but stopped screaming. She
just stood there looking at him. He turned her so she couldn’t see the impaled
body and the blood pooling on the floor. She slowly calmed down and he could
see her begin to get control of herself. While she gathered herself he went
over and collected the burner’s gun. It was a forty five caliber MAC-10 machine
pistol. Not a great gun, but bullets were bullets.

  He moved to one of the windows by the entrance and
tore down the curtains. Once the curtains were down he could see all the
windows had grates on the outside and inside. This place was sealed up tight.
The Night Children would have a way out, but it was somewhere protected by
booby traps and the Night Children themselves. Probably in the basement. The
trick was getting down there alive.

  “Rule # 12.” He mumbled to himself.

  “What is rule number twelve?” Rora asked him
quietly.

  “The safest looking place is always a trap. I
should have known it when all the other buildings were boarded up completely.”

  “Oh.”

 Derek checked the gate. It had bars of solid steel
and it weighed a ton. It also seemed to be locked in place. There was no way he
could budge it. Maybe they could blow the gate open. He went and dragged the
sport bikes in front of the gate. Derek opened up the gas tank of one and
splashed some gas out on the curtain he had torn down from one of the windows.
He stuffed the wet rag into the gas tank and lit it with his lighter. He
grabbed Rora and backed into the far corner. He pushed her down into a crouch
and knelt over her.

  June 10, 2029

  Inside the Night Children Lair

  The first tank blew and ignited the second bike’s
tank. The resulting explosion blew out the windows and sucked Derek’s breath
from his body. The shock wave hammered him and shrapnel and debris peppered
him, but he held firm. When he looked up he was surprised to find the gate
seemingly untouched. The blast had burned all of the wallpaper around the
doorway off revealing concrete walls. The remaining curtains, wallpaper, and
the crumbling furniture in the room were in shambles and all on fire. But the
gate was intact.

  The eerie silence following the blast was broken
by a scurrying sound. Derek heard it all around them, but didn’t see anything.
It sounded like rats were running around in the walls. Maybe the explosion had startled
them. He heard Rora give a little cry when she saw the gate was untouched, but
he was too distracted by the scurrying sound to react.

  Whatever was making the scurrying sound was way
too large to be a rat. Then he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
Through a hole punched in the wall by debris he saw something move by about
shoulder height. The cannibals were in the walls. There must be a series of
passageways running through the interior walls. If the Night Children were
using them they probably were not booby trapped and they probably had access to
the exit.

  Derek tracked the movement and fired both barrels
of his shotgun at the point on the wall he anticipated the cannibal to be
moving by. The blast punched a hole in what turned out to be a plaster and
lathe wall. And he was rewarded by the sight of a dead man wearing dirty
clothes slumped against the wall. The body slid out of sight leaving a bloody
trail on the wall. Derek grabbed Rora, “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

  “But the traps…”

    Derek dragged her over to the hole and ignored
her gagging sounds when she saw the body. He quickly punched a hole large
enough for them to get into the passageway. He did a quick search of the body
but only found a dirty knife. He kicked the dead man out of the way and pulled Rora
in after him. The passageway ran away from the entrance into the darkness. It
was only about two feet wide so they would have to move sideways. There was
some light but it was too dark for even Derek’s excellent night vision to see.
So he got a road flare out and lit it. The red glow lit the passageway with an
eerie flicker and Derek could see that the passageway turned left not too far
ahead.

  “Keep quiet and stay behind me.” He told Rora,
“We’re going to go through the passageways to the basement and get out. Keep
your hand on my back as we go.”

  He took her silence as acceptance of the plan. He
felt her place her hand on his back. Derek shuffled sideways with the flare in
his left hand in front and his Glock in his right hand. They reached the turn
and he glanced around it. The passageway went straight for about twenty feet
and then had a four way intersection. He couldn’t see too far beyond that into
the murky darkness, but there was no sign of the cannibals. No movement and it
was deathly silent.

  They turned the corner and headed towards the
intersection. As they got there Derek heard movement all around them. Rora
screamed and he glanced back to see the vague shape of a man behind them. Where
the hell did he come from? He must have dropped from the ceiling. The man was
advancing quickly towards Rora. Derek pushed her down and fired over her head.
The sound of the gunshots was deafening in the enclosed space. The man screamed
in pain and fell backwards. Derek was too busy locating the other threats to
pay any more attention to him.

  Night Children came at him from all directions. He
jabbed the lit end of the flare in the face of the cannibal in front of him who
was trying to stab him with a carving knife. The man screamed as the flare
burned out an eye and fell back. Derek fired twice to his right into the
darkness and was rewarded with a loud groan and the sound of a body hitting the
floor. A fourth cannibal came from his left and stabbed him in the back, but
Derek’s Kevlar vest deflected the blow. It was a good thing these freaks didn’t
use guns. He elbowed the man in the face with his left arm breaking the man’s
nose.

  The cannibal came at him again, the blood
streaming down his face not slowing him one bit. Derek fired two shots under
his left armpit into the man. He went down with two holes in his chest. Then
there was silence. It was only broken by the man with his eye burned out
sobbing quietly. Derek could see him clutching his eye in the flickering red
light of the flare. He fired one shot into the man’s head silencing him
forever. Amazingly Rora didn’t even flinch. He looked at her face and she
looked to be in a state of shock. It made sense; thirty six hours ago she was
working in the garden outside her idyllic home. Now she was being attacked by
cannibals in a dilapidated hotel.

  Derek held the flare out in each direction and
searched for an out. Down the right hand passageway he saw what looked like a
hole in the floor. He holstered his gun and dragged the girl behind him. She
didn’t resist, but she was not moving on her own. They made it to the hole
without any further attacks. Derek hoped he had scared the cannibals off, at
least for the time being. There was a wooden ladder in the hole leading down
into the darkness. He held the flare into the hole but it showed little other
than the ladder and a passageway leading back in the direction they came.

  He dropped down into the hole sliding down the
ladder instead of climbing. He drew his pistol and quickly scanned the
passageway but didn’t see any threats. It was a long passageway leading off
into darkness. He looked up to yell for Rora to come down but she was already
climbing down. Apparently staying close to him was very important to her. Once
she was down he led the way down the passageway.

  His journey was stopped suddenly as a pair of huge
arms burst through the wall and grabbed him. Plaster and lathe exploded around
him as he was pulled through the wall. Derek went airborne and flew across the
room as the hands let go. He hit the ground hard, knocking the pistol and flare
from his hands and sending his shotgun skittering away from the holster on his
back. He rolled to his feet and surveyed the room.

  He was definitely in the basement. It was a large
room with no windows and a cinder block outer wall. Steps led up from the
center of that wall. Likely an outside exit. The room was empty except for
hooks suspended from the ceiling holding meat of some kind. Derek didn’t need
more than one guess to know what it was. Along one of the interior walls was a
very large wooden table like a butcher block, with meat and butcher’s
implements on it. Above the block were shelves full of jars containing organs
and body parts. The liquid in them was probably alcohol or formaldehyde. He was
in the slaughterhouse. The smell of dead flesh assaulted Derek’s senses like a
physical blow and he instinctively recoiled.

  That recoil saved his life as a giant cleaver
blade swished through the space he had been occupying seconds before. It was
wielded by an equally giant man wearing only dirty pants and a blood stained
butcher’s apron. The man must have been seven feet tall and the blade was
easily five feet long. It looked like maybe it had been taken off of a
commercial paper cutter. The cannibal butcher had a crazed look in his eye, and
his wild long hair and beard only served to accentuate the effect.

  Derek rolled away as the monster took another
swing at him. It roared with rage and charged at him with the blade over its
head. Derek dodged behind a cut of meat to avoid the blow and watched in horror
as the blade easily severed the meat and nearly decapitated him. He needed a
weapon but his guns were gone and his knife would probably be insufficient. He
spotted a machete on the butcher block and started making his way there dodging
hanging meat and blows from the butcher’s blade.

  Derek made it to the block and grabbed the
machete. It was a Gerber blade made of carbon steel, one of the best blades in
the world. Someone had good taste, unfortunately probably a victim. He grabbed
it just in time to turn and block a blow from the massive cleaver. The impact
shook his entire body and he barely arrested the downward momentum before the
blade touched his head. This guy was as strong as was big. The beast chuckled
maniacally as he pushed downward forcing Derek back against the butcher block.

  They battled furiously, sparks flying from the
clashing blades. Derek was forced to give ground and circle to avoid the brutal
blows of the brute. The giant cannibal followed him around the room swinging
the massive cleaver like it was a knife. The blade sliced through the cuts of
meat and bone like they were paper as Derek dodged among them, dropping huge
hunks to the floor. He started to run out of room as the behemoth slowly
cornered him.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rora. She had
picked up his double barreled shotgun and was aiming it towards him and the
giant. He cursed to himself and slid to the side and dove down as she fired one
barrel. Unprepared, the recoil knocked her down.

   The hanging cuts of meat absorbed some of the
pellets, but some got through and stung the monster as well as shattering some
of the jars covering both of them in the liquid from the jars. The smell of the
liquid told Derek it was indeed formaldehyde. It howled in pain but only looked
angrier; it turned briefly to look at Rora. She screamed and backed towards the
steps. Derek used the distraction to get to his feet.

  “Stop shooting and get my pistol.” He yelled to Rora
as he attacked the huge cannibal.

  His speed and ferocity forced the monster back a
few steps, but it responded by kicking him in the chest. Derek flew back and
struck the butcher block hard. The blow knocked the breath out him and he
realized he couldn’t win a straight up brawl with this thing. He needed to do
something dramatic. He saw the flare still guttering on the flare not too far
away and it gave him an idea.

  When the monster took another massive overhand
swing at him, Derek dodged to the side. The cleaver hit the butcher block with
amazing force. Everything on it flew in different directions. Derek turned and
swung his machete down with as much force as he could muster. The cannibal
butcher tried to lift his blade to block but it was stuck deep in the block.
Derek’s chop severed both of its hands at the wrist. Damn the blade was sharp,
he was keeping this.

  The monster screamed in pain and anger as it
looked at the bleeding stumps where its hands had been. Derek wasted no time in
rushing to Rora and grabbing his shotgun. He fired one blast, not at the giant
but at the jars behind him. Formaldehyde splattered all over the beast and
pooled on the floor.  He kicked the flare over into the pool igniting the
highly flammable liquid. The flame exploded in a rush and engulfed the cannibal
butcher. He roared in agony and terror and lunged towards Derek and Rora. This
thing just wouldn’t die.

  “Now shoot!” Derek yelled at Rora.

  She held his pistol in both hands and started
pulling the trigger. She emptied the remaining clip into it and kept pulling
the trigger. The giant butcher stumbled and fell as the shots tore into it. It
laid face down still burning. The fire around the butcher block had spread and
engulfed the wall. Smoke was beginning to fill up the room. There was another
doorway opposite of the steps that Derek hadn’t noticed and he heard yelling
and howling coming from behind it. The rest of the Night Children were coming.

  “We HAVE to teach you how to shoot!” He snapped as
he rushed to her side.

  He snatched the pistol from Rora and holstered it.
With the machete in one hand and pulling Rora with the other, he ascended the
steps. They ended at a typical set of double cellar doors. These were anything
but typical and were made of steel and were padlocked shut. Just his luck.
Derek tried smashing it open with the machete but it didn’t budge. He heard the
cannibals enter the slaughterhouse. The frequency and volume of the yelling and
howling increased when they saw the fire and the carnage.

  The smoke was increasing and the cannibals were
right behind them. They needed to get out in the worst way. He could try to
shoot out the lock, but the chance of a ricochet in such close quarters was
high. He heard the pounding of footsteps as the Night Children realized they
were at the doors. He had no choice. Derek pulled his Glock and reloaded
quickly. He pushed Rora against the wall and turned away. Arm outstretched with
the gun as far away from him as possible he fire two rounds at the lock.

  The lock shattered and the ricochets just missed
both of them. He tore the padlock off and frantically pushed one of the doors
open. He shoved Rora through the opening and fired blindly back down the
stairs. Howls of pain let him know he had hit a few of them. Sometimes you have
to ignore Rule #5. Rule #1 always takes precedence.

  He followed the girl through the door and slammed
the door shut. He looked for something to hold it shut. Derek grabbed a shovel
leaning against the house and stuck it through the door handles. Moments after
he did that the cannibals tried to push the doors open. The shovel rattled as
they tried to force their way through. Derek could hear the shovels wooden
handle begin the crack as the angry Night Children pushed against the door.
That wouldn’t hold long. He needed something sturdier. Desperate he jammed the
burner’s MAC-10 between the handles. Derek took the clip out; you never know
when more ammo might come in handy. That seemed to hold, and with the amount of
smoke escaping the gap in the doors the cannibals would probably be overcome
soon.