The Apocalypse Collection by Tara West & R G Porter & P J Jones & M Edward McNally & Alan Nayes & Emma Jameson & Heather Marie Adkins

Author:Tara West & R G Porter & P J Jones & M Edward McNally & Alan Nayes & Emma Jameson & Heather Marie Adkins [West, Tara & Porter, R G & Jones, P J & McNally, M Edward & Nayes, Alan & Jameson, Emma & Adkins, Heather Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-30T07:00:00+00:00

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While the preceding story occurs at a different time and place, it is set within the world of The Norothian Cycle; an Epic, Muskets & Magic Fantasy series beginning with Book I — The Sable City.

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Cleavers

Heather Marie Adkins

The wheels of the Jeep rumbled beneath us. The motion would have felt comforting—steady—if it weren’t interrupted by unnatural jolts. The road was bad where we were; the Cleavers had spent too much time on this stretch of pavement, leaving a wake of broken asphalt and blood behind their cloven hooves.

Jessie’s wrist was casually draped over the steering wheel, but I could see the tension in her other hand resting on her holster. She kept the fragile snap-button unlocked as there was no way to know what we might come up against, and the past three weeks had taught us it was better to be safe than dead.

“How much longer?” I asked. My voice broke the silence so abruptly that my girlfriend’s hand tightened on the grip of her gun, her instincts off the charts.

Jessie’s square jaw tightened, but her emerald eyes didn’t leave the road. “I don’t know.”

“Hey.” I took her hand from the gun and pressed her fingertips to my lips one by one until a smile crossed her face.

She glanced at me, and as usual, I was struck by her beauty. It was understated—chestnut hair tossed in a lazy ponytail, smooth, fair skin dotted with ginger freckles, and a dimple in one cheek. But, there was an underlying sensuality that tugged at my insides in just the right way.

I was a lucky woman.

“No more sad face,” I warned her playfully, and leaned over to steal a quick kiss.

We lapsed into silence, and Jessie put her hand back on her gun. We were driving through one of the many areas “cleansed” by the Cleavers. Burnt trees still smoldered on the side of the road, the ground beneath them reduced to blackened ash. The sky was low, pregnant with cloud cover that cast a pall over the decimated landscape. The air smelled like smoke, but not the charcoal meat odor of the dead.

Always a plus.

“Tora. Close your window.” Jessie’s voice was hushed. She reached for her own window crank as I did the same.

It was a Cleaver.

He appeared in the lingering smoke, a lump on the side of the road. His body lay mangled, furred legs twisted unimaginably behind his toned, shirtless torso. As we rolled past his presumably dead body, wheels crackling over debris, I could just make out the curved black horns in his curly brown hair, and the blood on his snout.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a Cleaver, but that never made a sighting any easier. The Colonels had done a number on him; the bullet holes in his chest looked like bird shot, holes disfiguring his skin and exposing his insides. How many men and women had died in the process of taking him down was beyond thought.