Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) (14 page)

The man looked very familiar. At first, I
thought I might have known him from Bunker 108. He would have been
an Officer, given his stature. But I knew for a fact he wasn’t from
108. I would have recognized him.

I realized he looked like Makara.

“Samuel?”

“Yes. And you must be Alex.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s the name Makara keeps saying in her
sleep.”

“We thought you were dead. You were the whole
reason for our coming here.”

He gave a small smile. “Was I now?”

“Makara will go crazy. Are there other
survivors?”

“No. Just me.”

“We were chased by Raiders into the cave. We
thought you were dead when we saw the corpse pile.”

Samuel nodded. “They ran you right into the
Bunker. You are lucky you survived.”

“How did you escape? What happened to you
guys?”

“We will speak of that later. Let’s go check
on my sister.”

“Is she awake?"

That was when she screamed from the room next
to us. Samuel ran out of the room, pistol in hand. I got up,
grabbed my weapon, and ran after him.

We went down the hall, and burst into
Makara’s room. Makara was sitting up in bed, eyes wide.

“Makara, what’s wrong?” Samuel asked.

Makara looked at Samuel as if he were a
ghost. She didn’t say a word.

Samuel went to her, grabbed both her hands,
and helped her out of bed. All the time, Makara never looked away,
her expression full of disbelief.

There was no other discernible reaction on
Makara’s face. Slowly, her eyes filled with tears, and her
shoulders shook.

Samuel embraced her. Makara let out a
suppressed sob.

“I can’t believe this,” she said. “It is too
good to be true.”

Samuel didn’t say anything. They parted.

“First,” Makara said. “What about those
Raiders? Did they follow us in?”

Samuel shook his head. “I saw no Raiders. I
guess they did not follow you in. Though I would not have been
surprised if they had, given the contents of Alex’s pack.”

“They might still be out there,” I said.

“Maybe,” Samuel said. “But it’s been two days
now. Unless there was another reason, they would have long given up
the chase.”

“They probably took all the supplies we left
at the front of the cave,” Makara said.

She looked at Samuel as if she still could
not believe her eyes.

“And in either case,” Samuel said, “there is
another way out. It is harder, and it comes out near the top of
Cold Mountain. There is an elevator shaft, but to get there we
would have to go through the most dangerous part of the Bunker. The
part that is not secure.”

“Can’t we just go out the way we came in?” I
asked. “You have gas masks, don’t you?”

“Just the one,” Samuel said. “I have turned
this section of the Bunker upside down looking for more since
you’ve been sleeping, but have found nothing. We’d have to search
the main part of the Bunker – at which point we might as well just
leave through the elevator shaft. We haven’t the time or the
resources to secure the whole thing.”

“Are we leaving now?” I asked.

“No,” Samuel said. “You and Makara need rest.
We can catch up in the meantime.”

“Not before we have something to eat, Sam,”
Makara said.

“Yes,” Samuel said. “I’d forgotten that. The
kitchen is just across the hall. There is still plenty of frozen
food. The microwave still works.”

We went there, and had a meal of chicken,
vegetables, and bread, which had all been frozen in the deep
freeze. I hadn’t had meat since Bunker 108, and it tasted amazing.
By the time we finished, I was ready to sleep again. But Samuel
instead led us down the hall, and into a small break room with some
sofas, a television, and a pool table.

“We can speak here. First things first – what
happened to you after Los Angeles, Makara?”

Up to this point, I had not heard the full
story. I was listening almost as eagerly as Samuel.

She began.

“It was two years ago.” Makara smiled grimly.
“The day Raine was assassinated. It was my last hour in Los
Angeles. It was a warm day. You might remember that, Samuel. I was
on the roof of the Lost Angels Headquarters, the main base of
operations for the gang. It used to be a thirteen-story bank just
west of downtown. Now I suppose it’s still only rubble.”

Makara said nothing for a moment. Even if it
happened two years ago, it was clear that the fall of the Lost
Angels still haunted Makara. Perhaps it always would.

“I was watching the sunset from the rooftop
when the streets came alive. Hundreds of Black Reapers surrounded
the tower. Samuel ran to the roof, screaming for me.” She looked at
Samuel. “You told me Raine was dead. That we had to leave.”

“There were too many,” Samuel said. “The fall
of the Lost Angels had been a long time coming.”

Makara nodded. “We ran down the stairs. I
wanted to stay and fight, but you said Raine ordered you to keep me
safe. Despite my protests, somehow you got me to the back door. You
gave me a pack and a gun and pushed me out. I realized what was
happening: I was to run, like some coward, while you stayed and
fought.”

Samuel said nothing. Maybe Makara hadn’t
forgiven him for that: for not giving her the chance to fight and
die with the rest of the Lost Angels.

“Mortar shells flew through the air. The
explosions rocked everything, and all I saw was the fire. My
hearing faded, and there was nothing – I felt nothing, saw nothing,
knew nothing, as the rubble crashed around me.”

She said nothing for a while. Samuel and I
waited for her to go on.

“The entire building was a ruin behind me. It
was only as the gunshots faded, as the Reapers’ bikes tore through
the streets and surrounded the building, that I ran. I ran as far
as I could, though I had nowhere to run to. I ran east through the
streets, through decaying buildings, over toppled fences and broken
walls. I looked back, and the tower was gone in a smoking ruin,
along with my entire life. I thought you had died.

“I wandered for weeks. Some nights I found
food. Some nights I didn’t. Winter was coming.

“It was the next day when I fell in with a
group of Raiders. At first, one of the men wanted to use me and
keep me as his. But I shot him. I didn’t care what they did to me.
The leader – a man named Char – smiled. He fed me, and put clothes
on my back.

“I was in.

“We raided all through autumn. We killed, we
stole, and the men did worse than that. But never once would they
touch me. I was one of them.

“I was aware that I was becoming less and
less of a person. By October, we headed west out of the valley
along I-10, into the Mojave. We traveled for weeks, until we
reached Raider Bluff. I had never seen anything like it. The city
is huge, built on a giant, three-tiered mesa. The city has three
levels, including the fortified Alpha’s Compound at the top. We
brought camels laden with goods. We were treated like kings. I
allowed myself a smile. With my share of the loot, I was able to
trade for guns, for food, for clothes, for batts. It was all
mine.

“Everyone in town wanted to know who I was –
the female Raider. The women in Raider Bluff are little more than
slaves for the men. There are exceptions – like my friend Lisa, who
runs a bar called the Bounty, who I became friends with. When
winter came on, I hardly stepped outside that place. It was cold,
but I stayed in there, where I’d rented a room. I drank a lot. I
hardly remember the winter of 2058.

“When the storms ended, raid leaders searched
for new recruits. Dozens approached me, but I turned them all down.
I intended to stay there and drink myself to death.

“I realized my batts were running thin.
Without the batts, I could not eat, and more importantly, I could
not drink. I decided to continue living. I don’t know why. I didn’t
have anyone. Everyone in my family was dead. I knew nothing of
friendship.

“I entered onto a raid with the next leader
who approached me. His name was Brux.”

Makara paused to drink from a glass of water.
She looked at me, and gave a tired smile.

“Brux was especially cruel, even for a
Raider. His specialty was slaves. Women, mostly. I did not know
this at the time. Lisa warned me against him, but I did not care. I
knew he brought back the loot, and I wanted that.

“That year, I saw the most terrible things. I
will not repeat them here. I died inside more and more each passing
day. I was afforded no respect among the raid group, and the only
way I could get it was by killing one of them who tried to rape me.
Finally they learned, and kept away. Many times, I flew into rages
and threatened to take my share back to Bluff. Brux would not hear
of it.

“And Brux...he would watch me on those cold
nights when he thought I was sleeping. Countless times he tried to
have his way with me. I learned to sleep and remain aware of the
danger. But he never let me be, no matter what I tried. I could not
kill him – that would be mutiny, a crime punishable by crucifixion.
I had seen a death like that, in the winter. The crows had feasted
well the next day.

“I thought the year would never end. It was a
good year, though, if good could be used as a word. Twenty slaves,
one hundred camels, and plenty of loot. I collected four times the
batts with Brux than I did under Char.

“How could I do this, you ask? I don’t know.
I had no conscience. I didn’t care about anything.”

Makara stopped talking. Samuel had become
distant – grieved, in a way. I had to say something, to make her go
on.

“What caused you to care?” I asked.

“That did not happen until the next season.
There are two seasons in Raider Bluff – winter, and summer. In the
summer, you raid. In the winter, you hide inside and try not to
freeze to death. That winter, the end of 2059, I told Lisa I was
done. But I could not be done. We both knew this. Raiding, once
chosen, can never be abandoned. One, because no settlement will
take you. And two, because once abandoned, even Raiders won’t have
you. You either raided, or you starved. It is that simple.

“And there was something else I didn’t know.
Brux had marked me. It was believed, however falsely, that I was
his woman. The other raid leaders were afraid of him, so they did
not ask me to raid with them next season. There was nothing but to
go with Brux again that summer.

“When we left Bluff, things went well at
first. And then – misfortune upon misfortune. A sandstorm killed
two men and buried the first two months of loot. We spent days
trying to dig it up, but we had lost it. After that, everything was
lean.”

“Lean?” I asked.

“Had been picked over already. No loot.” She
sighed. “We trekked north, far from normal raiding territory. For
miles and miles we walked, until we reached the Ice Lands. Though
it was summer, the nights were deathly cold. But Brux was a
risk-taker – he thought there would be people here or, at the
least, cities that had not yet been looted. We were trying to find
one – called Portland – but we became lost in a Blight.

“This was the first Blight I’d seen on the
West Coast. The trees were twisted and turned. I had seen nothing
like it since my original home – Bunker One. One night, we were
attacked by a pack of monsters. We killed them, but at great cost.
What men did not die in the attack froze or starved on our journey
back to southern lands. Somehow, we found our way back – just six
of us, out of an original twelve.

“In southern lands again, we found food, but
little else. Whatever we raided became lost, or went straight to
Brux.

“We were on I-10, along the caravan routes,
hoping for a lucky train that another raid hadn’t snatched. But
instead, we came upon a sick man – a government man, I could tell,
because he wore a Bunker 114 uniform.”

Everything had come full circle. I leaned
forward as she continued.

“Brux stabbed him, and we dragged him off the
road and left him for dead. Little did we know that we were so
close to Bunker 108. That Bunker ended up taking him in, and that
man spread the Blight sickness to everyone there.”

“Wait,” Samuel said. “Bunker 108 is gone,
too?”

I nodded. “It is. I’m the only survivor.”

Samuel looked at me with pity. I tried to
ignore that.

“So going there is no longer an option,”
Samuel said. “I had hoped to learn more from a certain Dr. Keener.
Did you know him?”

A flood of emotion overwhelmed me when I
heard that name. “He was my dad.”

Samuel’s eyes widened. “Really? I am deeply
sorry. He was a scientist, wasn’t he? He studied the
xenovirus.”

I nodded. “He did. He knew a lot, but I don’t
know as much about it. How do you know about him?”

“Everyone who has spent any amount of time in
Bunker 114 is aware of Dr. Keener’s research. From time to time,
notes would be sent back and forth between us.”

“Why were you hoping to speak with him?” I
asked.

“To learn more about this xenovirus.” Samuel
shook his head. “I’m sorry, Alex. I will not speak of it
anymore.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

Makara waited a moment, before picking up
where she had left off.

“After the incident with the sick man, we
headed toward Raider Bluff. We camped on some hills, and waited by
the Twin Routes, as we had in the old days. We might yet come back
to trade for enough batts to last the winter.

“But that night was unusual, because Brux
slept deeply. It was even more unusual when I saw a boy crawling
into our camp. You can imagine my surprise. With eyes half-opened,
I watched as he crept up to Brux’s backpack, picked it up, and
simply walked off with it. The backpack with all the batts and
Brux’s reserve weapon. Instead of stopping him, I let him go. He
disappeared into the darkness. I waited. I saw my chance to get out
of there. If the boy would share the batts with me, I could buy my
way into one of the towns and never have to raid again. It was a
gamble, but my life was not getting any better.