The Day After Never - Purgatory Road (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 2) Read Free Page B

stream. Not the wind, which had died down at some point while he slept.
    Lucas flipped the assault rifle’s fire selector to three-round burst mode, and his index finger moved from the guard to the trigger. His pulse thudded in his ears and he willed himself calm, barely breathing, now fully awake, adrenaline flooding his system.
    The bush stirred again, and a furry gray-brown form with glowing eyes stepped cautiously from behind it, its ears perked straight up as it sniffed the air. Lucas exhaled and switched the rifle’s fire selector back to safe. The coyote drawn by the remnants of Lucas’s feast was likely more fearful than dangerous.
    “Relax, boy,” he murmured to Tango, rising and walking to the stallion. He patted the horse’s neck reassuringly, trying to calm him. “He’s just hungry. My bad for not throwing the bones into the water.”
    Tango grew still, and Lucas took another look through the NV scope to confirm that there were no other nocturnal visitors. He watched as the coyote was joined by a second, smaller mate, and his heart ached for Bear. The poor creatures were trying to do the best they could, scavenging whatever they ran across, as was everyone these days.
    Lucas lowered himself back onto the bedroll and passed the rest of the night in uneasy slumber, his dreams disturbed by the ghosts of the dead and an all-seeing eye from behind a wall of fire, disembodied and palpably evil, malevolence emanating from it like toxic steam as it glared triumphantly at a pile of corpses stacked like cordwood inside the Loving town hall.
     

Chapter 3
    Houston, Texas
     
    Magnus stalked from his headquarters to the massive parking lot that had once served tens of thousands of the faithful who’d worshipped in the church he’d commandeered. Framed on either side by gunmen and his inner circle of advisors, Magnus was scowling even more deeply than usual. His mahogany skin glistened in the torchlight as he neared a column of vehicles.
    Four Humvees were parked near the entrance, flanked by heavily armed gunmen. Two troop carriers waited behind them, and a small tanker truck brought up the rear. Magnus inspected the trucks with satisfaction and grunted to Whitely, the head of his special projects group.
    “The diesel’s still usable?” Magnus demanded.
    “Yes,” Whitely said. “We’ve treated it with fuel stabilizer every year. We tested it recently, and it burns fine.”
    Magnus studied the tanker. “This is the last of it?”
    “We have ten thousand gallons in an above-ground storage tank, and that’s it. Most of it had degraded past the point of no return by the time we located any.” Whitely hesitated. “You remember how it was. People were killing each other over a gallon of gas.”
    Magnus waved the comment away. “How long will it take them to reach Pecos? What is it, four hundred miles?”
    “At least five hundred, but if the roads are clogged with debris and abandoned vehicles, they’ll be lucky if they make a few hundred miles per day. So a couple days, assuming no complications.”
    Magnus nodded, accustomed to the long travel times – just part of the new world order where nothing worked.
    “Still faster than horseback.”
    “Yes,” Whitely agreed. They had discussed the options for supplying Garret with reinforcements and had concluded that it made sense to send some of their limited armor to Pecos to cut travel time by a fifth, as well as to provide a show of force. Operational vehicles were rare, most now junk due to scavengers and the elements. With no factories making parts or tires, every year there were fewer supplies to keep them running, assuming any fuel could be found.
    The arrival of the trucks would underscore the Crew’s supremacy to the cartel and quell any notions of rebellion the Locos might have when they heard the new conditions Magnus’s envoy would bring.
    Magnus looked over at a powerfully built man wearing a leather vest, whose head was shaved like his