After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1) Read Free Page A

you.”
    “Uh, to be honest, I’m still trying to figure out what to make of you.”
    He lay back again, the rubble below him rustling as he settled on top of it.
    “The name’s Max,” he said.
    “I’m Brant.”
    He lifted a few fingers in acknowledgement.
    “Is everything okay, Max?” I said. “Do you need help?”
    He laughed to himself. “Well now, that’s an interesting couple of questions. I’d say ‘no’ to both.”
    “How long have you been there?”
    “A few hours,” he said. “This is where I come to ‘unwind’. Exhilarating, isn’t it?”
    I looked about the crumbling street. “It has its charms. I guess good holiday spots are hard to find these days.”
    “How about you? You blow in with that storm last night?”
    “In a way, yes.”
    “Where from? And where to?”
    I took a few moments to consider. “I’m trying to get home,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get there for a long while, but... I can’t go back there yet. So I guess, right now, I’m headed anywhere that keeps me out of trouble.”
    “Another kindred spirit, then,” Max said, sarcastic. “Another lost soul.”
    I shrugged. “So it seems.” Uncertainly, I said, “Look, I really need to get going. If I can-”
    He sat up and looked at me for a moment, then reached for the satchel with his ruined left hand. Pinching it between thumb and forefinger, he twirled it around, making no attempt to open it.
    “You want this back?”
    “Please.”
    “Travelling light, Brant?”
    “Uh, yeah.”
    He let it spin for another half turn, staring at it apathetically, then tossed it toward me. I snatched it out of the air.
    “Don’t let me hold you up,” he said, and lacking even a shred of tact, he lay back down once again, adding sardonically, “Nice meeting you.”
    I gave the satchel a quick once-over, performing an impromptu inventory check. Everything was where it should be.
    “Are you sure you...?”
    “Fuck off,” he interrupted.
    “Uh... okay then.”  I hitched the satchel on my shoulder and turned away, but before I could take more than a few steps I heard a humming, rattling sound in the distance that made my blood curdle.  “Oh shit .”
    I saw it appear down the street, slicing through the air and buzzing like an angry hornet: a Marauder drone.  It was moving so damn fast . 
    I ran, lurching forward like a madman, but the debris was so thick it felt as though I was running in quicksand.
    “Max, get out of here!” I called without looking back. “It’s them!”
    The drone grew louder with every step, and I looked about wildly for a place to hide, for a weapon I could use against it. With no better option, I clutched at a chunk of concrete and turned, preparing to hurl it at the drone, but it was already upon me. A spear-like appendage shot out and pierced my outstretched wrist, knocking the concrete from my grasp and driving me backward against a jagged arch of brickwork that had fallen across the street. I screamed in agony as the lance slammed into the wall, sending a spray of brick and mortar into the air and leaving me pinned against it with my feet dangling in the air.
    Cutting through the blinding pain was the thought that the drones only operated in short range. The Marauders wouldn’t be far behind.
    Reaching across with my free hand, I tried to wrestle against it as the pain threatened to overwhelm me, but I was stuck fast. I screamed again, writhing in anguish. The rusted chassis of the drone hung in the air just out of reach, and I flailed at it uselessly. Smaller than me but ferocious and unyielding, it had me trapped, the black, disc-like sensors it used for eyes twitching about on the end of stalks as it examined its prey.
    Over the grinding noise of its engine I could hear machinery in the distance. The Marauders were closing in.
     

 
    4
    The first one appeared, and I knew him by sight, if not by name.
    He coasted down the street on a tattered sand bike, its thick tyres easily