The Day After Never - Blood Honor (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller) by Russell Blake

Author:Russell Blake [Blake, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reprobatio Ltd.
Published: 2016-04-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Lucas pushed Tango as hard as he dared while Ruby followed behind him a fair distance on her mule, Jax, with Eve seated in front of her. Lucas had asked Ruby to mind the child, unsure what he would find when he arrived, but wanting to be prepared for anything – including full-scale war.

He gasped when he arrived at the gate, which, like that guarding the town, had also been blown apart, and jumped down from Tango, M4 at the ready. The barn was nothing more than a charred husk, its frame blackened and the planks burned away. Nine bodies littered the perimeter – cartel, by their appearance. The air was heavy with the odor of ash, and Lucas’s heart trip-hammered in his chest as he surveyed the grounds before heading into the house.

The heavy front door was ajar, and when he stepped inside, a low moan escaped from his lips. His grandfather was lying by the gun safe, his lever-action Winchester and one of the shotguns beside him, half the rounds gone from an ammo box by the window. He’d been shot a half dozen times, and had gone hard, by the look of him, dealing out more than the attackers had bargained for right to the end.

Lucas knelt beside him, tears streaming down his face, and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Hal. I should have been here. I…” His voice trailed off, ending in a strangled sob, and he sat back, shoulders sagging, grieving for the man who’d made him what he was, who’d taught him right from wrong, who had counseled him and reproached him and celebrated his successes like Lucas was his own son.

That these monsters had seen fit to attack an eighty-three-year-old man and destroy his life’s work, after he’d survived everything the planet could throw at him…

“They’ll pay,” Lucas promised, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I’ll send them to hell. Every one of them.”

Lucas shuddered again at the sight of Hal’s body, and then he drew a long breath. That wasn’t his grandfather. That was just the shell he’d occupied, the container that had housed his spirit, nothing more. Hal was not that bit of carbon and water, that jumble of genes and synapses. That was merely the vehicle Hal had used, and now he was done with it, its purpose served.

Lucas slowly rose to his feet and moved to the photos scattered across the floor. He leaned over and lifted the one of his father in his Ranger garb and slid it inside his flak vest, the pain in his heart a ragged wound.

Why had they done this? They’d had to go out of their way and had paid a heavy toll to take the ranch. What possible purpose had it served?

Realization dawned on him. They hadn’t come for Hal or the ranch.

“They came for me,” he whispered. The words were an indictment. Everyone in town had believed that he’d refused to go look for the girl. That he’d gone back to the ranch and was sleeping off his adventure.

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