Nightwalker 4 Read online

  Nightwalker 4

  A Post-Apocalyptic Western Adventure

  Frank Roderus

  Craig Martelle

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Nightwalker (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2015 by Frank Roderus (as revised)

  Cover by Ryan Schwarz - thecoverdesigner.com

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  Nightwalker is published by LMBPN Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of LMBPN Publishing. Published under license from the Roderus Estate.

  First US edition, May 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-64202-215-5

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  About the Author

  Notes - Craig Martelle

  Books by Frank Roderus

  Books by Craig Martelle

  Other books from LMBPN Publishing

  Chapter One

  James Wolfe stood and took a long, careful look around. Finding no enemies, he picked up his rucksack and weapons. Wolfe was desperately trying to get home.

  A nuclear holocaust had caught Wolfe in Idaho, thousands of miles from his home and – far more importantly – his family in Bradenton, Florida. The bombs shattered the United States, creating hot zones, red zones flooded with harmful radiation and clear areas where no radiation remained. Those zones were governed by a new entity called the Federal Command.

  Wolfe had run afoul of some brothers, smugglers who scavenged manufactured goods from the radioactive Hot Zones. The Alston brothers had accused him of murder, and now Wolfe was a fugitive any time he was in a Clear Area.

  Unfortunately, he was easy to identify by way of his mane of snowy white hair, part of the legacy from his activity immediately after the war. At that time, to escape the fallout from the bombs that targeted Boise, Wolfe holed up inside an old mine shaft. Subsisting on the foods that were in the long-haul truck he had been driving, he stayed there for more than two years.

  Somehow, from radiation or due to strange chemical components in the water that seeped out of the walls, he had become immensely strong and quick. His hair had turned white and his beard no longer grew. He could also sense radiation as a tingle in his fingertips. That came in handy to keep him safe in the Hot Zone. The biggest change, however, was in his eyesight.

  When Wolfe finally emerged from the Idaho mineshaft, he could see in the dark with all the acuity of a stalking cat, but was painfully blinded by daylight. He had scavenged a pair of welding goggles that he wore in daylight to cut the light and avoid the pain of exposure.

  James Wolfe was greatly changed by the time he spent in that mine. But none of that mattered to him. All he cared about now was to get home to Lurleen and their toddler Jo-Jo, Joseph Henry Wolfe IV, named for Wolfe’s father and grandfather.

  Home to his family if he could find them.

  Home to his family if they still lived.

  With a deep sigh he shouldered his rucksack and his weapons – a pair of M16 rifles, a powerful bow, a blowgun and a sack of precious ammunition for the rifles – along with camp gear, a sleeping bag and a few items of clothing. It was more than most had. A treasure to be cherished or something to be coveted by others.

  “C’mon, dog,” he said, patting his thigh to summon the big dog that had attached itself to him during his travels. “We got miles to cover.” Several thousand miles, actually, but that did not matter if he could only get through to find Lurleen and Jo-Jo.

  Undaunted, he and his hairy traveling companion set out again.

  Chapter Two

  “There we go, dog. Just what we need,” Wolfe said, looking at a long abandoned gas station a half mile or so ahead. Minutes later he broke the door open and went inside. He found the map rack and pulled out one that covered Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.

  With a sigh, Wolfe sat at the desk and spread the map open, trying to work out his best way forward.

  Unfortunately, the map was printed pre-war and did not show where the Hot Zone ended and the more dangerous – to him – Clear Area began.

  Wolfe knew he needed to avoid the cesspool of radiation that had been Salt Lake City and equally to avoid the string of danger zones that would have been Cheyenne, Denver, Colorado Springs and possibly Pueblo as well.

  The radiation was one factor he had to consider. Water was another. And finding food was a logical third.

  Immediately south was something called badlands. That did not sound very enticing. Nor did the Clear Area that he knew lay somewhere ahead.

  Wolfe grunted aloud.

  “We’ll go on through South Pass,” he mused to the big, German Shepherd cross, which sat and cocked its head to one side. “Turn south and unless we run into FedCom troopers go south through Colorado. I’m thinking by the time we get down into New Mexico we should be beyond danger from them. I wouldn’t think their BOLOs should extend that far. In the meantime, next town we come to, I’ll take out some insurance against them recognizing me.”

  Wolfe smiled and scratched the dog behind the ears, a gesture it seemed to especially enjoy.

  “Come along,” he said, patting his thigh to summon the dog. He picked up his gear and set off into the night at a fast walk.

  An hour past dawn he came to Rock Springs or what was left of it. Most of what he could see had been vandalized. The rest was simply abandoned. If anyone remained here, Wolfe did not see them. More telling, the dog gave no indication of the presence of humans.

  Wolfe found another gas station, this time looking up an address in the local telephone directory and again plucking a map from the display. With that to guide him, he walked to what had been a Walmart store.

  It was bright daylight outside, but Wolfe was able to pull the welding goggles down and see perfectly well inside th
e cavernous store.

  As he fully expected, nearly everything of value in the store had long since been picked over and carried away. Incredibly, even the flat screen televisions had been taken by scavengers – dreamers – who must have believed that electricity and commercial television would return someday.

  He made his way first to the toy department and was pleased to find a bin that still contained small rubber balls in a variety of colors.

  Wolfe picked out all the ones that fit into his blowgun. Then he headed for the display of hair dyes. Those seemed to have been completely neglected by the vandals who took most of the merchandise. He picked out a nondescript brown shade and took all four packages that they had, one to use immediately and the remaining three to use when his roots began to show.

  Then it was back to the kitchen wares. There was little remaining on those shelves, mostly small appliances that required electricity to operate. That was just fine by Wolfe. A blender provided him with a rather nice pitcher, and a mixer set gave him a dandy bowl to work with.

  “Okay, dog,” he said when he had those in hand. “Let’s go find us some water so I can go back to having dark hair, shall we?”

  The dog wagged its tail in assent and pricked its ears forward, waiting for Wolfe’s next command.

  Chapter Three

  Three days later, dawn caught them in the open. They were following a highway that was quickly reverting to cracks with weeds pushing through to daylight.

  “There,” Wolfe said, pointing to a culvert that would at least get him out of the direct sunlight. Not that the dog cared what he said or where he pointed, but talking with the animal as if it were a companion seemed to help.

  He walked away from what was left of the pavement and made his way down a slight embankment to the shadowy opening.

  “It’s dry,” he announced with pleasure, “and I don’t see any snakes or other critters. What do you think?”

  The dog made its opinion plain enough. It trotted over to the culvert mouth and cautiously walked inside.

  Wolfe stashed his gear ahead of him as he crawled into the concrete tube, putting his precious belongings on the other side of his body and the culvert opening. He pulled his goggles over his eyes and curled up along the dank floor, promptly falling asleep.

  Sometime later – he had no idea how long he might have slept – Wolfe was awakened by the dog’s growling.

  And a human voice telling him, “Just stay right there, mister. No sudden moves, hear? We got you covered.” The man giggled. “With your own gun. Now isn’t that a hoot?”

  Wolfe looked at the dog. “Let me know sooner than now? I swear you are a lousy watch dog.”

  Chapter Four

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Wolfe calmly asked.

  “Mister, we already done it,” the man with the rifle answered. “Now just stay right there. No need for you to bother y’self. Just get hold of your dog…I’d hate to have to shoot him…or you. So call him off and go back to sleep. We’ll take care o’ everything else.” The man giggled and waved the rifle back and forth.

  “You aren’t going to shoot me with an empty rifle,” Wolfe said.

  “Huh?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  The fellow with the weapon dropped his eyes to the rifle as if he could see whether it was loaded or not. It was, of course, but he did not know that.

  Wolfe launched himself, moving with an almost superhuman speed. He snatched the rifle by the barrel, yanking it out of the hands of the marauder. Just as quickly he dropped the rifle and took hold of the fellow’s head with both hands. A quick twist and an ugly sound of shattering bone and the man’s neck broke.

  There were two others standing behind that one. Wolfe let the first man’s body drop while he went after the nearer of the remaining two. He was aware of a gray flash at his right side as the dog charged out of the culvert too.

  Wolfe grabbed the second man and jerked him so hard he could feel the arm break. The man howled in pain and went to his knees. At that he was better off than his companion.

  The dog tore that man’s throat out, blood gushing from the ragged wound in a torrent.

  “Don’t, mister, please don’t,” Wolfe’s victim screamed.

  His companion dropped, both hands clutching his throat in a futile attempt to stop the flow of blood.

  “Don’t hurt me, mister. Please,” the man whined as he held his broken arm with his free hand. “Please.”

  Wolfe thought the dog looked rather pleased with itself. It came back to Wolfe and sat at his side while the fellow he had defended them against quickly bled to death.

  The remaining marauder begged for his life.

  “Get out of here,” Wolfe snarled. “If I see you again, I’ll kill you, understand?”

  “Y-y-yes, sir,” he stammered, then turned and fled without a backward glance toward his dead friends. Some friend. Marauders. Scavengers. Thieves.

  The scum of the earth.

  Wolfe picked up the rifle the first man had dropped and retrieved the backpack they intended to steal.

  “Now there’s a good sleep ruined, “Wolfe said as he shouldered the backpack “Come on, dog. We might as well do some traveling since we’re awake anyway.”

  Chapter Five

  Wolfe had been through Baggs, Wyoming several times when driving his long-haul truck. It was a town he always admired. He knew nothing about it, really, but always thought of it as a clean and pleasant community, one he might have enjoyed living in.

  Now it seemed like no one lived there. The town appeared to be completely deserted.

  Out of a sudden impulse of nostalgia, Wolfe stopped at the same café where he always used to when passing through. He had no illusions about being able to order food there, but it would be daybreak soon enough and it would not hurt to stop a little early for a change.

  “What do you think, dog? Are you ready to get off your paws for a little while?”

  The big dog looked at him and wagged its tail.

  “You agree, do you? All right then. We’ll stop here and get some rest while I think about what used to be, back in the day.”

  Wolfe pushed the café door open and walked inside. The place was very much as he remembered but a little dusty now and without the scents of frying food and the low burr of conversations.

  He took a deep breath and sighed, then set his weapons down and swung the pack off his back.

  “Take your choice for a place to sleep,” he suggested aloud. “As for me, I think I’ll rearrange that booth there so I can have those seat cushions to sleep on.”

  He pulled the table out of the way and pushed the two seats together to form a bed of sorts. It was too short which meant his legs hung over the end. But it would do. And in great comfort for someone accustomed to sleeping on the ground.

  He stuffed his rifles between him and the wall and used his backpack as a pillow. It was not soft, but it was better than nothing.

  The dog curled up close to his feet. Wolfe pulled his welder’s goggles over his eyes, lay down and was quickly asleep.

  Chapter Six

  The dog’s growls woke him. Wolfe sat up. It was daylight but mercifully he had the dark goggles in place to protect his eyes.

  The hackles at the back of the dog’s neck were standing tall, and the big animal was poised protectively close to Wolfe, crouched ready to spring.

  It took only a moment for him to see what the problem was. Beside the café door were two men. They each held a long gun. One carried a bolt-action hunting rifle and the other, a shotgun. Both wore rumpled camouflage clothing and were heavily bearded.

  “Call off your dog, mister. We wouldn’t want t’ hurt him,” the shorter of the two said.

  Wolfe laid a hand on the dog’s head, and it relaxed. A little. It dropped to a seat but maintained a wary vigilance at his side.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Wolfe asked.

  “Seems to me we’re the ones ought t’ be
asking questions, mister,” the same man said. “Are you one o’ the Leader’s people?”

  “I don’t know any Leader,” Wolfe said. “I’m not from around here. Just passing through, actually.”

  “Can you prove that?” the taller man demanded.

  Wolfe scowled. “Now how on earth am I supposed to prove something like that?” he snapped. He was becoming irritated. These men were making demands and while they were not overtly threatening the mere fact that they held the guns served as threat enough.

  He gauged the distance between himself, sitting on the edge of the booth cushions, and the men who were standing at the doorway. He wondered if he could reach and dispatch them before they could shoot or would he have to use his own rifle and try to get off a shot first.

  It was a toss-up, Wolfe concluded. It depended on how quickly the two could react and bring the guns into play.