The Day After Never - Blood Honor (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller) Read Free

curved thirty-round magazines – most were fully automatic and, while not as accurate as Lucas’s M4, possessed of prodigious punch at ranges up to three hundred yards. Lucas gathered the assault rifles, two of which were the AKM variant with folding wire stocks, and tossed them near the rest of the weapons.
    A gurgle from a figure he’d yet to search stopped him in his tracks, and he swung around in a crouch, M4 at the ready. The man, his Mohawk bleached canary yellow, was dressed identically to the other Raiders in filthy black jeans and a sweat-stained shirt. Lucas jogged toward him, ready to open fire, but the man seemed oblivious. Blood from a head wound was crusted across his forehead and eyelids. Lucas relieved him of the Glock in his waistband and toed the AK away, and then knelt beside him cautiously.
    The man’s eyes fluttered open and he stared vacantly at Lucas. He tried to speak, but all that emanated from his mouth was a gush of blood; and then his head rolled to the side and he moaned, the death rattle drawn out for a good five seconds.
    Lucas went through his things and removed a folding buck knife from the man’s back pocket. It was of high quality and would command a reasonable trade. The Glock and the two spare magazines would also be prized for barter, he knew, although he personally had little use for a 9mm weapon. Lucas’s philosophy had always been that the trade-off of temporary deafness that accompanied firing his Kimber was more than compensated for by its raw stopping power.
    Once all the weapons were accounted for, he did a quick inventory and then carried the ones with the highest trade value over to Tango. Lucas loaded his saddlebags to the bursting point with guns and ammunition, disappointed but unsurprised that he had to leave two of the AK-47s and several pounds of ammo behind.
    The boom of distant thunder echoed off the gulch walls, and Lucas turned in the direction of the approaching storm – and froze when he spied another figure near a boulder outcropping, chest heaving and obviously alive. He hadn’t spotted the figure earlier, so whoever it was had been well concealed. He sprang into motion, sprinting in a zigzag toward the downed shooter, M4 trained on the figure as he ran.
    When he reached the outcropping, he stopped short, mouth open in disbelief.
    It was a woman.
    Unconscious and gasping, an AR-15 dropped nearby.
    But alive, her chest laboring with each ragged breath, her shirt and pants stained dark with blood.
     

Chapter 2
    Lucas slowly lowered his weapon as he neared the woman and took in her condition. She’d been hit in the thigh and the upper chest, her cheap body armor affording inadequate protection against rifle rounds. He crouched by her side and eyed her pale face: her features twisted with agony even in unconsciousness.
    He frisked her and found a snub-nose .38 revolver at the small of her back. He tossed the gun aside and glanced up at the sky, concerned that he was losing the light, and then returned his attention to the woman and eased her out of the vest. His fingers came away slick with blood, and he quickly ferreted in his flak vest for a small LED flashlight that used rechargeable batteries.
    Lucas twisted the penlight on and trained the beam on the woman’s wounds. The leg didn’t look too bad, but the upper chest wound did – judging by her pallor, she’d lost considerable blood and was in danger of going into shock, assuming she wasn’t already there. More blood oozed from the entry wound, and Lucas made a quick decision. He would have to risk the flashlight drawing any bad guys lingering in the area, or the woman would die.
    He retraced his steps to Tango and retrieved his first aid kit from a pouch dangling from his saddle. The horse seemed to intuit his agitation and whinnied softly.
    “Don’t worry, big guy. We’ll be out of here soon enough,” Lucas murmured, and made his way back to the woman.
    After flicking on the flashlight again, he