Underworld Earth by Nicholas Gagnier

Author:Nicholas Gagnier [Gagnier, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781708947453
Published: 2019-11-26T22:00:00+00:00

Peter

It only takes one moment.

In the vast, cruel expanse of choice and consequence, there might be some solace to these things so far outside my control. I’ll admit, the silver linings were initially hard to see. Anywhere I could do good was littered with bodies and depravity, forced to wade into moral grey to protect my child.

Where I could be good, I did my best.

Now, on the back of my idea and Rex Shapiro’s murder, all of Haven grovels at Victor Quinn’s feet. The man is an enigma who rose from nothing. Something about an unloved son brandishing a revolver like a maniac just draws people in.

Days have passed, and the news has spread. Trucks not wholly owned by those driving them flock across state lines. Folks of all stripes—biker gangs, farmers, survivalists and gun nuts, to name a few—have come to see the man who dared to take control of Washington State’s most notorious township. Haven’s city buildings and police precinct, schools and industrial parks may be devoid of life, but there is a future here for them. Or so they heard.

Victor anticipated this. Last night, his boys constructed a crass stage. They broke into the high school, ripped out the auditorium’s lights, hooking it up to generators they robbed out in suburbia.

Where the road in front of Haven’s town square only welcomed tumbleweeds, RVs and family vehicles are pulled up. One tries to double park his Winnebego along the sidewalk to have a front seat; other RVs blare their horns at his pushiness. Those unwilling to sleep in their backseats, or who number too many to fit inside confined spaces for long, roll out sleeping bags on the ground. Cooking stations are set up with folding tables to serve their brethren. Like a magnet, Victor attracted them here; like positive ions to his negative, they are every bit deluded as he is. It could be starvation, sleeplessness and general lack of hope wrought by the last week.

But at the square root, these people have always believed in what men like Victor stand for. The plague only wiped away all the layers of bullshit.

Leaving Fiona with Margaery and Mara—who are jointly willing to keep Haven’s children out of Victor’s warpath—I seek Victor, knowing hard questions would be asked if I didn’t attend. I don’t want to confirm if Sydney is still sour with me for rejecting her the other night, but my absence would set off alarms, endangering Fiona.

I have no intention of storming Fairchild. Whether Victor Quinn accepts that remains to be seen. Arriving at the Square, parked vehicles obstruct powerful flood lights. Men in trucker hats chug beer looted from stores in their respective towns or stockpiled long before. Many smoke cigarettes and marijuana; I’m not sure where they acquired the latter, mixing with a pungent cloud of exhaust from idling tailpipes.

There is no carpeting on the stage; cheap lumber stolen from Mick Whitby’s yard off Main and Coven are held together by stripped screws and poor drilling jobs.

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