Long Road Home: A Post-Apocalyptic Next-World Series Book 4 Battle Stand by Lance K Ewing

Author:Lance K Ewing [Ewing, Lance K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2025-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 48

Above Ginger Camp – Collin’s Task

Collin opted to walk the trail, observing various sets of the track. Two large boot prints sank in the soft earth of a man, maybe 180 pounds, and another a little heavier. Others of various sizes scattered the well-used path in both directions and lightly indented the ground.

Broken twigs covered the ground, and occasional blood smears covered leaves and rocks along the trail. Opening into a small clearing, Collin gasped, holding his mouth closed, not believing what he saw. Nearly every foot of the suburban-sized backyard clearing was stained in various stages of dark red. An altar stood in the middle with nearly ten feet of chain attached and ending in a studded collar an outdoor dog that bit may wear. The collar was made of heavy black leather, with metal studs every two inches, and the adjusting holes stretched like a too-small belt worn by a heavy-set man. Walking the perimeter of the tree line, he stayed out of sight as much as possible.

River rocks stacked three feet high in places and only two feet in others, as long as a man littered the inside of the tree line. “How many?” he said aloud, counting to twenty-five before declaring it didn't matter much now. The smell hit him like a punch in the gut, leaving him wondering how he hadn't noticed it before. “What the hell has been happening here?” he whispered, racing to the other side of the small field, heading up a large ridge. The trail steepened and zig-zagged through the trees, opening up at the top of the ridge. Collin crawled on his hands and knees as the native Indians would, spying on a herd of buffalo from a ridge, hoping not to scare them before getting a shot off.

The midday sun shone in his eyes, and the wind in the trees could have been comforting any other day before the lights went out. It was a perfect summer day; some may have said and probably did. Today, the wind brought the smell of death, sweet, charred like a campfire burned to its coals, bitter somehow, and the unmistakable scent of spoiled meat.

He studied his breathing, shimmying off the trail on his hands and knees, then his belly as he crested the top, peering over his naked eyes, first observing a haphazard collection of tents, structures made of tents, boxes, scrap metal siding, logs, and rocks.

“Children, families,” he said aloud, watching more than thirty, maybe fifty people mull around camp, some gathering fireweed, others cooking a soup-like meal over a wood fire in one large pot.

“What is this place? What is this place?” he repeated.

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