Fireside Read online

  “It looks like they came over the walls and killed all the sentries before they could alert anyone. They went to the houses on the west side of the compound and grabbed the kids. Nathan was able to ring the alarm a couple of times before he died; it wasn’t loud enough for the families on the east to hear it.”

  “The west? Are Caleb and Varan safe?”

  “No. They’re missing.”

  “Humph,” he grunted. “How’d that damn demonbroc get in here?”

  Blake turned, picked up a device off the counter and held it up for Aiden to see. It was a long pole with a loop of metal cable on one side. “They must have brought it with them and released it inside the Homestead to cause confusion.”

  Aiden tried to stand and his vision threatened to go black. “Sit down, Father,” Blake ordered. “I’ve already discussed it with the others. We’re going after them at first light when our trackers can see. It doesn’t do us any good to bumble around in the darkness outside of the walls.”

  “Good. That will give me time to make a cast for this arm,” Aiden said, lifting his left arm.

  “No. You’re not going,” Blake answered sternly. “Dad, you know that you’ll slow us down. You’re better suited to stay here and run the defense of the compound.”

  “I’m going after the children,” he protested.

  “Garrett and I have this, Dad,” Blake said with a comforting hand on his thigh. “You have to trust us now.”

  Aiden knew the truth of his son’s words, and the truth hurt. For as long as he could remember, he’d been the leader of the Traxx family. Over time, the mantle of leadership had slowly been transitioning to Luke. Now Luke was dead and Aiden wasn’t certain which of his two remaining sons was strong enough to lead the family. The world seemed to be sinking even further into depravity—if that was possible.

  He was rocked hard as a small pair of hands clasped around his neck. “Oh, Grandad! I’m so happy you’re safe,” Tanya squealed in his ear as she buried her face in his hair. “You can’t leave us.”

  Aiden knew that he was stuck. His granddaughter had overheard him saying that he wanted to go on the search party. Now she’d requested that he stay. He reached across with his good hand and patted her head softly. “Of course, little one. Grandad will stay here and fight off any more of the bad men.”

  Tanya pointed across the kitchen at the bloody carcass. “Is that a demonbroc?”

  “Yes, child,” Aiden answered. “I told you and your cousins that they were very dangerous. Now do you believe me?”

  She nodded her head, rubbing his scalp painfully as her forehead grated into the side of his head. “Are you okay, Grandad?”

  “I’ll be fine, little one. I just need some rest.”

  Tanya accepted his half-lie and asked, “Can you tell me the rest of the story about Aeric?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’m going to try and get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about my childhood and the first time I saw a demonbroc.”

  “I’ll tell Caleb and Varan that you’re gonna continue the story!” she said, visibly excited.

  The tears welled up in his eyes and threatened to spill onto his cheeks. He composed himself, he was a Traxx. He had to be strong for the others. “Caleb and Varan will have to hear the story later. Tomorrow will be just for you, little one.”

  Tanya nodded her head once again. She understood what his unspoken words truly meant; the family had seen it before. Her cousins had been taken by slavers. “Daddy and Uncle Blake will bring Caleb and Varan back home, Grandad.”

  ONE

  Tanya fussed with the blankets that she’d piled high around her grandfather. She wanted him to be as comfortable as possible given the battered condition he was in after his fight with the demonbroc. “How’s that, Grandad?”

  “It’s fine, child,” the man told her with a weak smile. She’d overheard her father and uncle talking before they left to track down the slavers this morning. They were positive that an infection was going to set in and Grandad would lose his arm. The cuts were too deep and the muscle too torn to repair.

  She made a face that her grandfather mistook for anger. “Varan and Caleb will be alright,” he said. “They are both strong young men who know how to take care of themselves.”

  “Daddy said that you’re gonna lose your arm,” she replied. “Is that true? Is your arm going to come off, Grandad?”

  The old man scoffed at her question. “No, child. Your father’s a damn fool. I’ve had much worse injuries than this little scrape. Don’t you worry, Tanya, I’ll be around for a long, long time.”

  She smiled and gave him another hug. It must have been the hundredth one that morning. “Are you sure it’s okay to tell me a story without the boys here? Won’t they get mad?”

  “It’s alright. Besides, the boys don’t want to know about Aeric’s love life,” he said with a wink.

  “Oh, are you gonna tell me if our grandmother is Katie or Veronica?”

  “Yes, child. Now, settle in on Grandad’s lap—Oof! Watch the arm,” he groaned as she adjusted herself into a comfortable position so she could hear the story.

  Tanya watched his face intently as he stared off towards the fireplace. His eyes glazed over and then he began to speak.

  *****

  Aeric was settling into life in San Angelo. The people here were nice and he felt like he had a purpose in life instead of wasting time, waiting for the inevitable. He and Tyler had started out as members on the Gathering Squad six months ago. Over time and continual successful missions, Mayor Delgado promoted them and now they managed all of the squads.

  As far as apocalyptic life ten months after a global nuclear war went, his was almost perfect. Everyone that he cared for was safe, he had a purpose in life and for now, there was enough food and water. Except for the raiders outside the walls, the only real issue he had was with the two beautiful women in his life.

  His girlfriend, Kate, whom he’d dated since middle school, broke up with his senior year of high school and had begun dating again after he rescued her from a life of prostitution after the war, was pregnant with another man’s baby. Then, there was Veronica. They’d only kissed that one time, before the war, but they spent time together almost every day and he felt more and more drawn towards her each time he said goodbye.

  He’d developed a strong emotional bond with both of them and it was an interesting situation that he was in with the two women. When they first met, they’d been cold to one another. Over time, and with the limited space within the city, they’d come to realize that while they had different ethnic backgrounds, they were similar in almost every way.

  Kate had been the prom queen in high school, Veronica was the homecoming queen at hers. Both had influential fathers, Kate’s had died years ago in a skiing accident, while Veronica’s father was still alive and held the office of San Angelo’s mayor. They had similar interests in clothing style, mannerisms and even their sense of humor. It was inevitable that they’d end up as either close friends or bitter enemies.

  Luckily for Aeric, they’d chosen to become friends instead of enemies, both choosing to keep a wary eye on the other. Katie knew that she had Aeric’s heart and allowed herself to open her own to Veronica. During the trip back from Missouri, she’d been jealous of Veronica before she’d even met the woman. Her jealousy seemed to have faded with the confidence that her impending motherhood had instilled in her.

  She’d grown as a woman over the last year. When he’d returned to his hometown to find his father dead and his mother a prisoner in her own home, Katie had been a prostitute on the street, trading her body for scraps of food. Then, she’d been taken hostage by Justin, the former leader of the Vultures, and turned into a sex slave. It was Justin’s baby that grew inside of her, not Aeric’s. Kate had been able to use those horrible experiences to strengthen her character, allowing the pain and disgrace to fade away and not define her.

  The scars that Justin had disfig
ured Aeric with, earning him the nickname “Traxx” were also fading. The youthful elasticity of his skin helped a lot, but so did the scar therapy cream that Veronica gave him from the old medical supply factory on the northeast side of town. He’d diligently used the cream on his face and most of the scars had paled. The ones on his jawline and neck were mostly hidden by the short beard that he wore, leaving only those around his eyes, nose and forehead visible.

  His attempts to fade the scarring stopped at his face, though. He hadn’t bothered to try and spend the effort on the ones that crisscrossed his body. They were simply too extensive and it was next to impossible to even know where to begin trying to treat them. Instead, he wore them as a badge of honor, proclaiming to everyone who saw them that he’d survived torture at the hands of the Vultures. They weren’t the unbeatable force that everyone had thought that they were.

  While the ash still fell from the skies almost daily, it wasn’t the massive debris storms that had blanketed the earth with the remains of the old world like it had been in the early months after the war. The bulk of the ash stayed suspended in the clouds as Tyler had predicted it would and there’d even been a few times when the sun peeked through enough to bring the temperatures above the freezing mark.

  Aeric rode his bike from his house to the warehouse where he worked. He and Kate lived three streets away from Veronica’s with Tyler and Kate’s little sister Julie, along with baby Kayla, who spent several nights a week with the guard Shellie when she wasn’t on duty at one of the checkpoints. It was an imperfect system; one that they all knew would have to change as they readjusted to life inside a secure city, but having Tyler close to everyone made Aeric feel safer.

  Every morning he and Tyler reported to the Stephens Arena, Angelo State University’s old basketball arena, where they’d begun stockpiling every kind of supply imaginable from food and water to clothing and weaponry. It was a centrally-located, secure facility with wide-open fields of fire for the guards assigned there. The mayor renamed it the Provisions Warehouse and anything that couldn’t be stored there was locked up in a few other smaller locations across the city. They’d even begun the construction of defenses around the arena to make it as secure as possible. The supplies were the city’s lifeline.

  When he could, Aeric made sure to leave a few minutes before Tyler so he could stop by and eat breakfast with Veronica. It was a habit that he’d developed soon after they arrived in San Angelo. It started out as a way to pass information that grew into one of the most anticipated parts of his day. She’d fill him in on the details of what happened in the city that she’d learned from her father and he’d pass along the Gathering Squads’ targets for the day or go over any units on extended patrols. After the business was complete, they’d spend time together just talking as friends and laughing about her experiences at the soup kitchen that she ran for the city. He valued her friendship almost as much as the one that he had with Tyler.

  Aeric turned his bike onto Veronica’s driveway and braked in front of the garage door. Even though the mayor lived in the nicest part of the city, it was all relative in their post-apocalyptic world. He didn’t want his bike stolen, so he wheeled it with him to the front door and knocked.

  After a few seconds, Veronica opened the door. “Good morning, Aeric!” she smiled.

  “Morning, Vee. Can I come in?”

  “When are you gonna stop asking that?”

  “Probably never,” he replied as he pushed his bicycle through the door and placed it next to hers in the foyer.

  “You’re always welcome here, Aeric. Always,” she whispered in his ear as she gave him a hug.

  Veronica often made it plain to him what she thought about his relationship with Katie. Even though the two of them were strictly plutonic friends, she felt that Kate had used the situation in Missouri to get back with Aeric when he should have been with her. Sometimes he felt like one of those old kids’ toys that got punched, fell over, and then popped right back into place to be hit from the opposite side.

  He ignored her comment as he’d done for months and dug into his backpack. “I brought some cereal and powdered milk,” he stated.

  “Oh, yum,” she answered with mock enthusiasm, quickly dropping the subject about him staying with her. It was one that they’d talked about often and they were at the point where she’d offer a friendly reminder and then move on. “So, where are you guys headed today?”

  “We got a lead on a warehouse in a town near Midland-Odessa, so we’ll be taking one of the military trucks to get as much as possible.”

  She smiled and said, “Good. I feel better about your missions when you guys take a truck.”

  “It’s not the preferred method since we only have a finite amount of useable fuel, but since it’s so far away we don’t really have a choice,” Aeric shrugged helplessly.

  “How far away?” Her voice edged on alarm that she struggled to suppress.

  “About seventy-five miles,” he responded. “It’ll be an overnight trip. If there’s anything there, it’ll be worth it.”

  “We don’t know the status of Midland and Odessa. They were both a little bit bigger than San Angelo. It might be dangerous if they’ve taken the precautions that we have and set up long-range scavenging parties.”

  He handed the powdered milk to Veronica, who measured out two servings worth and used a whisk to mix in the water. While she mixed, he said, “Yeah, that’s why we’re taking two squads of Lorelei’s Shooters with us. We’re hoping that the two of them fractured enough along city lines that they’re only concerned with each other and not what’s further away.”

  “It’s terrible that we’re hoping for a war between other cities so we can swoop in and take stuff from under their noses,” she stated. It was the way their new world was, kill or be killed, steal and survive or don’t and die. “What’s the name of the town?”

  “It’s a small town called Garden City. They’re about forty miles or so from Midland, so I’m hoping that we’ll be good.”

  “What about the people who live there?”

  “We’ll offer them the same deal that we offer everyone. They can come live here in the safety of San Angelo in exchange for all of their supplies or they could possibly become a trading partner. Or maybe we’ll have to fight; we don’t know yet. One of the advantages to this place is that it’s isolated from everyone else, so those people may not want anything to do with us, which will suck since we’re taking the truck up there.”

  “Can’t be helped,” she stated and poured the reconstituted milk over the two bowls of cereal that Aeric made while they talked.

  They carried their bowls to the kitchen table and sat opposite each other, eating in silence for a few minutes. Then the sound of Aeric’s spoon scraping against his empty bowl reminded them that he had to leave. He stood and put his dishes in the trash. They’d had the good fortune to find a warehouse full of paper dishes and plastic utensils early on. Whenever possible, they tried to use the disposable dinnerware to avoid wasting their drinking water to clean dishes.

  Veronica hugged him firmly from behind, resting her head on his back in a decidedly not friendly gesture of affection. “Take care of yourself and your men, Aeric. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  He turned and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her back. “We’ll be fine. Lorelei has trained her Shooters better than anything else out there. We can handle ourselves.”

  “Against a few people, yeah. But what if you run into a big group or if you guys come across some of those things that have been popping up?”

  The things that Veronica asked about were mutated animals—and sometimes people. All the radiation had already begun to alter creatures on the genetic level. The ones that survived the winter passed along the mutations to their young in the spring. Some of the mutations were harmless, like extra limbs, while others had already begun showing frightening changes. There were wild dogs that had extra-long nails and larger teeth that could
punch through heavy clothing, goats with wickedly-spiked horns, lizards with nearly impenetrable scales, and the list went on. Aeric wondered what those creatures would evolve into over the course of twenty or thirty years.

  “We can handle them. The truck gives us all sorts of options to stay high out of their way.”

  “What about on the way back, when the truck is full and you’re riding your bike?”

  “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  “I do worry, Aeric,” she insisted and squeezed his waist even harder, pressing herself into him. “You mean so much to me. You’re my best friend and you know more about me than anyone left alive in San Angelo besides my father. You know that I’ll worry about you nonstop until you get back tomorrow.”

  “I know. Just…don’t, okay? Me and Ty got this.”

  Veronica leaned back away from him and looked into his eyes. “You take too many risks. You’re the head of the Gathering Squads, you can stay in town and have other people carry out your orders.”

  “That’s not me and you know it,” he sighed. He’d gotten the exact same grief from Katie before he left. “I have a responsibility to this town. You’ve given me and my friends so much; we owe it to you to give back. Ty and me aren’t desk people, we roll up our sleeves and get to work when things need doing.”

  She laughed and smacked him playfully on the chest. “You sound like some political candidate in a television ad.”

  He grinned along with her. “Yeah, I guess it was kind of corny, huh?”

  “It was more than corny. More like clichéd and predictable.” Her smile faded away and she continued, “You don’t always have to be the hero, Aeric.”

  He snorted and tried to step away. Veronica stepped with him, still holding on. “I’m not a hero. I just think it’s the right thing to do. I can’t sit at a desk somewhere and ask my guys to put themselves in danger.”

  “I know,” she said and buried her face in his chest. “That’s why I love you.”

  Shit. Fuckity-shit, double shit! “Um… I… Veronica, you know how I feel about you. You mean the world to me.”