Fiction: Afterlife Volume 3 (Chapter 29)

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Afterlife is a sci fi/western action serial published every other week. Join us in a post-apocalyptic journey through a future where life has become little more than a struggle for survival. However, where there’s life, there’s always hope.

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Read the previous chapter here:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 28

Where:

The resistance leaders try to figure out their next steps.
Ava visits Ayman in the hospital.
Paul Jacobs and Aiyana McGowan come face to face with a giant mantis.

Find the Volume 3 Table of Contents page here.

View the Map here.

Check out Afterlife on Goodreads and don’t forget to rate it.

 

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 29

Belle Leveaux felt like an animal.  She was in a pen like an animal, surrounded by makeshift metal fences covered with razor wire.  The heat was unbearable, and there was no escaping it for the prisoners in the pen.  They were exposed to the white hot sun like lab rats under fluorescent lights.

IAO thugs in leather outfits were patrolling the edges of the pen, holding RLRs and looking unsavory as always.  Belle was sitting in the sand, as were the other male and female soldiers who’d been captured.  One corner of the pen was drenched in piss and feces and all manner of filth.  The IAO put them all in gray jumpsuits and shaved all of their heads before they threw them into the pen, which added to the feeling of dehumanization.  Belle still teared up whenever she thought about it.  Her hair had been a symbol of her femininity.  Long before her first surgery, Belle had worn her hair long.  It was one way she could always express her true self.  She’d gotten it cut shorter more recently once she’d been able to shave her facial hair, but it was still long enough to feel feminine.  Now she was bald, like the other fifteen men and women in the pen.  Like them, she’d been robbed of her individuality and her humanity.

She’d fought with Wild Joe about getting rid of her facial hair ever since her last surgery.  He’d promised her over and over, she could shave it once they made enough money and he could still find some way to use her in the show.  Finally, once they’d joined the resistance army, Joe said she could shave her facial hair and wax her face.  Her full transition had been complete for just a few days, and now the IAO took her hair.  She kept thinking that it was her attitude and who she was inside, not her outward appearance that mattered, but it didn’t make it any easier.

Belle looked up to see Margaret approaching her.  Margie was one of the first prisoners Belle had met in the camp.  Margie was still beautiful, even without her long, blonde hair.  She had a pretty face, bright blue eyes, and clear, pale skin.  She was the one the IAO thugs took most often when they were looking to rape one of the prisoners.  They hadn’t taken Belle yet and she was grateful for that, but she wished there was something she could have done for Margie and the other women.  Margie’s husband Dan spent most of his time staring off into space with an angry look in his eyes.  The first time they’d taken Margie, he tried to fight them off, but the soldiers teased him and beat him senseless in front of the other prisoners.  “This is what happens if you put up a fight,” one of the thugs had said.  “Heroes are zeros.”  Belle cringed every time an IAO guard approached her, afraid it might finally be her turn.

Margie sat down next to her.  “Do you think they even know we’re here?  Do you think they care?”

Belle frowned.  “I have friends, family even I guess you could call them, who I know are working every second of every day trying to figure out a way to rescue me.”  She smiled at Margie.  “They’ll rescue you, too.  And the others.”

Margie frowned and nodded.  “Yeah, but what if they’re dead.”

“I can’t think like that,” Belle said.  Margie had a point, though.

“Oh, God,” Margie said as two IAO guards passed by.  She put her hands on her bald head and tried to hide her face.

“Hey, sweetie,” one of them said to her.  “Ready for another round, whore?”

Tears dripped down Margie’s cheeks.  “I want to kill all these bastards.  I wish there were some way…”

Belle put her arm around her.  “Hey, you,” someone shouted from behind Belle.  “Get over here.  You with your arm around sweetums there.”

Belle turned to see a guard by the locked gate motioning for her to come to him.  There were four other guards there with him.  They were all holding laser rifles.  “Don’t fight it,” Margie said as Belle stood.  “They’ll only make it worse.”

Belle frowned and walked towards the guards.  “Jolly Roger and Jay Dog need help with somethin’,” the thug said as they opened the gate.  “You’re the lucky prisoner, it turns out.”

They pushed her through the gate and held guns at her back as they walked her through the dunes.  One of the thugs put a blindfold on her.  “We don’t want you to see where you’re goin’.”  They walked her down one dune and up another until she heard laughing.  There were several men, but Belle thought she heard the laughter of a child.  Her eyes could just see red as bright sunlight filtered through the blindfold.

“This is the one who was with Wild Joe Rodeo?” a screechy, abrasive voice asked.  “Belle the Beauty.  I’m on some heavy hallucinogens right now, so you don’t know how surreal and crazy this all seems.”  Several people laughed, including the child.

“Let’s hit ‘er up,” the child said.  He couldn’t have been older than ten or twelve.  “Should we run a train on ‘er or shoot ‘er full of holes?  I’m game either way.”

“We’ve got something special planned,” the screechy voice said.

Belle heard someone whisper something and the boy started laughing.  “That’ll be perfect.  So she’s really a man?  That explains why no one’s touchin’ ‘im then.”  She had no idea how they knew so much about her and Wild Joe.

“All right,” the boy said.  “Come over here.”  Someone pushed Belle several paces and then stopped her.  “Here’s a gun.”  Somebody wrapped Belle’s fingers around the hilt of a gun.  “We need someone to test fire it,” the boy said.  He giggled.  “Don’t do it and we kill you and all the prisoners who were in the pen with you.  So we’ll help you aim.  And you fire.  Each time we say.”  Belle could hear excitement in the boy’s voice.

“We don’t want this thing to explode in one of our hands if it don’t work right,” the screechy voice explained.  “Better you than us.”  Several of them laughed.

“Here are earplugs,” the boy said as someone jammed earplugs into Belle’s ears.

Belle waited an uncomfortable amount of time as she could barely hear the muffled sounds of voices.  Finally, someone raised her arm and aimed the gun for her.  “Fire!” the boy shouted loud enough for her to hear it even with her earplugs in.  “Fire or we kill you!  Now!”  She reluctantly pulled the trigger.  It was a laser pistol of some kind.  There didn’t seem to be any ill effects, at least none that she noticed.  “Fire!” he shouted again and she did so.  In all, he had her fire ten times.  The laugher reached a crescendo as someone took out her earplugs.

“She, or he, has no idea,” the boy said as he laughed.  Someone took the gun away from Belle and took off the blindfold and she looked down to see ten bodies.  They were prisoners who’d been in the pen with her, all shot through the head and bleeding out into the sand.  Belle noticed Margie among them, her blue eyes staring into emptiness.

Belle fell to her knees as the IAO soldiers laughed.  She was shaking.  She turned to see the boy laughing and clapping his hands.  His eyes were full of malice and he was wearing the usual IAO leather with a belt with bones hanging from it.  His necklace held a human skull, and he was shaved bald.  Belle couldn’t tell the boy’s ethnic background because his skin was painted black and red.  He pointed at her, laughing.  “We got you good.”

“Way to rub it in, Jay Dog,” one of the soldiers said.  He was a large Hispanic man with cybernetic metal arms.  Like the others, he was wearing leather and metal.  Belle felt pangs in her stomach and she threw up into the sand.  The soldiers laughed more.

“Take ‘im back to the pen,” the screechy voice said.  Belle saw that it belonged to a shaky, paranoid-looking man who was wearing leather and metal armor.  There were gold stars fastened to his shoulders and several hypodermic needles lined his belt.  His crazy eyes darted everywhere as he spoke.  “Make sure the others in the pen realize what he did,” he said.  “Especially sweetie’s husband.”

The boy they called Jay Dog laughed.  “But Jolly Roger, I thought you were sweetie’s husband now.”

Jolly Roger smiled a crooked, jagged smile.  “Oh, you’re right.  I guess I should be in mourning, then.”  The soldiers standing all around them laughed as two of them pulled Belle to her feet.  Jolly Roger stuck one of his needles into his arm and closed his eyes in ecstasy, disposing of the used syringe in the sand.  Belle still felt sick to her stomach, but she tried to focus it into anger.  When Wild Joe and the others came to free her, she’d be sure to take out as many of these thugs as she could.

<>

“Get behind me,” Paul said as he tried to position himself between Aiyana and the giant, stick-like mantis that was staring them down.  “A weapon would be nice about now.  A laser pistol.  Even a sword.  Anything.”

“We’ve been fine without them for millennia,” Aiyana said.

“So what would your people do in this situation?”  The mantis was standing still, but Paul anticipated an attack.  He’d read some books about praying mantises since he’d always had a strange interest in them, but he was afraid his knowledge wouldn’t help him much against such a large specimen.

The mantis came at him quickly like lightning.  Paul tried to kick it away but it brushed past him.  He spun to see that its powerful forelegs had clamped down on Aiyana’s shoulders and it was pulling her away from him as she kicked and shouted to no avail.  The creature prepared to rip her throat out with its powerful mandibles so it could feast on her head.  Paul ran at it with all of his strength and tackled it.  Blood flew through the air as the creature’s claws were ripped away from Aiyana’s shoulders.  Paul tried to back away from the creature but it clamped his right arm in its saw-like foreleg.  Aiyana grabbed a fallen tree limb and started hitting the creature as hard as she could in the eyes.  It let go of Paul and he and Aiyana backed away from it.  Aiyana was still holding the limb as the mantis stared them down.  Its forelegs were covered with blood from Aiyana’s shoulders and Paul’s right arm.  “I’ve never seen one of these this size,” Aiyana said, answering Paul’s earlier question.  Her shoulders were bloody from the mantis’ claws.  “I doubt any other Denverites have either, except maybe the ones who’ve disappeared over the years.”

“Disappeared over the years?” Paul asked.  “You could have mentioned that before we went hiking.”

“I did tell you these mountains can be dangerous,” she said.

Paul found a branch as big as Aiyana’s and picked it up, careful to keep the giant insect in front of him.  He knew if they turned their backs, they’d be dead.  He and Aiyana backed up until they reached the trail entrance at the edge of the trees.  The mantis slowly moved forward, its compound eyes fixed on Paul and Aiyana as they held their tree limbs, ready to swing.  Paul looked behind it and beyond their blanket at the dais with the indistinguishable statue.  The statue was large, probably weighed several hundred pounds, and the base was crumbling.  Paul was surprised the thing hadn’t topped over yet.  “I have an idea,” he said.  “I hate to put you in this position, but can you run up that dais and past that statue and see if you can get that thing to follow you.”

Aiyana frowned.  “I could, if it doesn’t kill me on the way.”

“I’ll keep a close eye,” Paul said.  “I’ll make sure it doesn’t catch you again.  I’ll push the statue onto it.  I think that’s the only way we can survive this thing.  If we try to run, that thing will catch us.  We can’t turn our backs on it.”

“And you don’t think it’ll catch me?” Aiyana asked.

“Try to make a wide circle.  I think you can do it.  Like I said, if it seems like it’s getting close, I’ll try to attack it from behind.”

Aiyana shrugged.  She started running, wide around the insect, and it started moving towards her.  Paul made a B line for the dais and the statue.  The insect was getting close to Aiyana as she ran past the statue.  Paul reached the shapeless stone figure and rammed it with all of his might just after Aiyana ran past.  His timing was perfect.  The huge statue fell on top of the mantis and thick, green goo gushed out across the dais.  The creature was twitching, but it was firmly stuck beneath the statue.  Aiyana approached Paul, her shoulders bloody and the top part of her robe shredded.  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Paul said.

Aiyana nodded and they grabbed their blanket and picnic basket and headed for the trail.  “We managed without weapons,” Aiyana said.

Paul rolled his eyes and put his arm around her.  “It would have been way easier to just blast it with a laser pistol, though.”

They walked quickly down the trail, but Paul continuously heard rustling in the trees and shrubs around them.  He stopped a few times, but felt it would probably be better to get back to Aiyana’s town buggy as quickly as possible.  They went down the stone stairs between the statues and Paul’s leg started bothering him, though adrenaline helped him fight through the pain.  They followed the trail towards the foothills and reached Aiyana’s vehicle at the trailhead on a dirt road she’d taken from the outskirts of the Denver Highlands.  “We have to be careful,” she said.  “If we go too fast, we could end up with Acute Mountain Sickness.”

“Sounds great,” Paul said.  “We probably need doctors anyway to check out our wounds.”  He sat in the passenger seat in the front of the town buggy as Aiyana rummaged through the back.

“Did you forget I’m a nurse?” she asked with a grin as she produced a first aid kit.  “I’ll take care of our wounds.”  She cleaned and bandaged both of their wounds.  Paul was still amazed at her gentle touch as she tended to his arm.  When she was done, she put the first aid kit back, took her place in the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

Paul noticed several large wolves the size of horses emerge from the trees behind them.  “Let’s get going,” he said nervously, and Aiyana drove through the woods on the dirt trail.  The wolves ran after them a short while as the vehicle bumped over the dirt road, but Aiyana increased the speed and they lost their pursuers around a bend.

“So you’ve come out here before and never been attacked?” Paul asked as she drove.

“Several times,” she said.  “It’s never been a problem before.  I guess the dangerous animals like you for some reason.”

“Yeah,” Paul said as he leaned back in the chair.  He thought about the picnic and the love making before the mantis showed up.  He looked at Aiyana’s pretty face as she drove and realized it was going to be even harder to leave Denver now.  He was torn.  Part of him knew he had to find a way to join back up with the resistance before it was too late.  But he knew if he left Denver, he’d probably never see Aiyana again.  He’d never met a woman he felt so comfortable with.  Paul was falling in love.  He had a lot of thinking to do.

<>

Eileen Traymont listened to the men walking outside of her cell.  Her face, left side, and left shoulder were bandaged up, as was her burnt left hand.  Her wounds weren’t life threatening but they were severe enough that she’d required surgery and now she was in a bed in a cell with an IV.  She figured the resistance would execute her eventually, just like she’d planned on doing with Abigail Song.  She chuckled at how the tables had been turned.  It was ironic that they were treating her wounds only to kill her later.  She was going to be killed for her loyalty.  Killed because she was a patriot who served Rennock until the end.  Killed because she believed in free markets and objectivist principles.  She’d be proud to die if that was the case.  There were far worse things than dying for a cause one truly believed in.  No matter how the world viewed her after her death, Eileen would know she’d been a hero.  As long as Dusty Snow, Phil Funk, and Gerald Remus were all also executed, Eileen was okay with her fate.  Those traitors killed Stanley and deserved what was coming to them.  He’d been a good soldier and a good friend.

Eileen’s room wasn’t as bad as one would expect.  The walls were painted off-white and there was a hologram projector which she refused to use.  It was hidden in the ceiling behind strong panels and she had no access to it, but it was controlled by voice command.  Leave it to the resistance to give their prisoners hologram projectors.  They were the ultimate hypocrites.  They’d hand you food with one hand while they stabbed you with the other.  There was even a painting on the wall of a garden with some flowers and trees.  A real happy little paradise.  The door opened and a nurse in a white dress walked into the room.  There was a guard standing at the door, watching.  The nurse smiled at Eileen, her face kind and seemingly harmless.  Eileen knew better.  “How are you feeling?” the nurse asked.

“They should kill me and get it over with,” Eileen blurted.  “Why bother helping me?”

“We don’t use the death penalty,” the nurse said.  “It’s against Southwest Resistance law.  Besides, you haven’t had a trial yet.”

“A trial?” Eileen asked.  “Spare me.”  She hoped the nurse was wrong about the death penalty.  Eileen preferred death to life in a prison pretending to be a hotel.

“Will you answer the question?” the nurse asked.  “How are you feeling today?”

“Peachy,” Eileen said.  “I have laser wounds all over me and I’m in prison.  Other than that, I’m great.”

The nurse nodded.  “Well, things could be worse.”

“Not for me,” Eileen said.  “Just get the hell out of here, unless you have something you’re actually going to do.”

“I’ll come back later with your medicine,” the nurse said and she left the room, closing and locking the metal door behind her.  No matter how hard the hypocrites tried to make it look like a hotel, Eileen knew this was still a prison.

There was nothing for her to do but await her fate.  Rennock was gone.  General Schmidt was probably gone, or else soon would be.  The IAO was taking over everything, anyway.  Even the resistance wasn’t going to last.  Eileen was starting to see that during her time in Black Rock.  The world was crumbling.  She was just glad she wouldn’t be there to see the worst of it.  She started thinking of ways she could speed up the process.  Try to bite the next orderly who came into her room maybe?  Try to suffocate herself in her pillow?  Hopefully they’d get it over with soon.  The waiting was driving her insane.

<>

Abby had been riding in Sammy’s vehicle for about two days now.  They’d stopped overnight and slept.  Shelly was alive, but she’d lost a lot of blood and they needed to get her to a hospital soon.  Sammy kept assuring Abby they had almost reached their destination.  He’d been very generous with food and water.  He’d periodically cleaned and dressed Shelly’s wounds and given her water and shots from his medical kit which he’d said contained food supplements to help her make it until they got her to their destination.  Abby had no idea where Sammy had gotten so many vegetables and so much clean water from.  When she asked him she just got more vague answers which were meant to divert her rather than inform her.

They’d been heading northwest, and Abby was sure they were further north now than she’d ever traveled.  They were likely out of the Disputed Lands and were probably about to enter the Midwest Territory if they weren’t already there.  They’d been traveling mostly through the mountains and were now driving on a dirt road Abby wasn’t familiar with.  They rounded a bend around a cliff and Abby noticed two towering statues up ahead.  They reminded her of the Watcher statue she’d seen near Carpenter City.  They were hundreds of feet high and were holding books.  They were robed and had beards and made Abby think of wizards from fantasy novels.  “What do the statues represent?” she asked Sammy as she looked up in awe.

He shrugged.  “They are guardians of the truth.  The Guardians.”

“What truth is that?” Abby asked.

“You will understand once we reach our destination,” he said.

They passed between the statues and were riding through the foothills.  Abby looked down into a valley where a huge city had been built, one she wasn’t familiar with.  The buildings were crumbling.  Many had toppled.  Plants and trees were growing everywhere, but there was also lots of farmland.  There were lots of people in the city.  Probably hundreds or thousands.  Many were outside working the fields.  There were trees and rivers outside of the city, and far to the east were several huge craters.  Abby thought about what she was looking at and everything started coming together.  “This is Denver,” she said.  “Or what’s left of it.  Those craters were caused by explosions.”  The craters were the size of small cities.  “Nuclear explosions,” she added.  Her jaw dropped.

“I told you it would all make sense,” Sammy said as he drove towards the city.

“The world was destroyed in a nuclear war,” she said.  “But you all somehow survived.”

“Our ancestors of course,” Sammy said.  “And it may not have been a war.  Nobody knows.”

“Of course it was a war,” Abby said.  “Why else would nuclear weapons have been used?”

“We weren’t at war with anyone when it happened,” he said.  “If there was a war, it was sudden.”  They drove down into the city, through the streets, past toppled buildings and some which were still standing.  They stopped at a large white building with lots of windows.  “This is the infirmary,” Sammy said.  He walked in and shortly after was accompanied by two men with a stretcher.  They placed Shelly on the stretcher and took her inside.

“I’ll go with her,” Abby said.

Sammy raised his hand as he sat next to her in the driver’s seat once again.  “She’ll be fine.  There’s someone you need to meet.”

He drove through the crumbling city to a fairly intact residential area.  People who were outside looked at Abby with curiosity.  Sammy stopped the vehicle in front of a two story house with a garden full of colorful flowers.  “This is the home of Sicheii Tallfeather,” he said.  “He’s the wisest man here and he’ll want to meet you.  He’ll know what to do.”

“Is he your leader?” Abby asked.

“We don’t have a leader,” Sammy said as he and Abby stepped down from the vehicle.  “We all rule ourselves here.”

Abby followed him onto the porch of the house and up to the front door.  He knocked and the door was answered by a young woman with tan skin and an exotic look about her.  She was dressed in a white robe and Abby noticed a small tumor just beneath her right ear.  “Hi, Sammy,” she said.  She smiled at Abby.  “Hello.  I’m Aiyana McGowan.”  She reached out her hand and Abby shook it.

“Abigail Song.”

Aiyana’s jaw dropped.  “The Abigail Song?”

Abby looked over Aiyana’s shoulder and saw a man in his mid-thirties standing in the living room talking to someone.  He was short, with dark, curly hair, and Abby recognized him immediately.  “Paul!”  Paul Jacobs was wearing gray pants and a gray pullover shirt. Abby hadn’t seen him since she ran away from North Point with Della, Ace, and Annabelle.

He walked to them and stood beside Aiyana in the doorway, smiling.  “Abby,” he said, and she hugged him.  He reacted in his usual nervous manner, but still hugged her back.

“You know each other?” Aiyana asked.  Paul held Aiyana’s hand and Abby realized they were together.

Abby nodded.  “We fought together.  For the resistance.  And traveled together.”  Aiyana nodded.

“Is your grandfather home?” Sammy asked.

Aiyana nodded again.  “We were just about to have dinner.  Won’t you come in and join us?  I’m sure my family wouldn’t mind.”  She smiled at Abby.  “It’s not often you get the chance to eat with a living legend.”

Abby looked at Paul and he shrugged.  “I guess word gets around,” he said.  “I don’t think I’ve mentioned you at all.”

Aiyana glared at him.  “You should have.  I had no idea you knew Abigail Song.”  Abby and Sammy followed them into the house.

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4rYJoVILjo]

 

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Continue on to the next chapter:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 30
Where:
Ayman and Ava go out on their first date.
The resistance leaders try to figure out their next moves.
Abby and Shelly deal with the Denverites.

Find the Volume 3 Table of Contents page here.

View the Map here.

Check out Afterlife on Goodreads and don’t forget to rate it.

Check out Michael Monroe’s page on Amazon to find other stuff he’s written.
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