Nightwalker 6 Read online

  Nightwalker 6

  Written by Craig Martelle, created by

  Frank Roderus

  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.

  Copyright © 2019 Frank Roderus & Craig Martelle

  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, September 2019

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-64202-472-2

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64202-473-9

  Nightwalker (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2015-2019 by Frank Roderus

  Nightwalker 6 Team

  Thanks to our Beta Readers

  Micky Cocker, Dr. Jim Caplan, Kelly O’Donnell, and John Ashmore

  Thanks to our JIT Readers

  Micky Cocker

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Jeff Goode

  Misty Roa

  John Ashmore

  Larry Omans

  Editor

  Lynne Stiegler

  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

  About the Author

  Notes - Craig Martelle

  Books by Frank Roderus

  Books by Craig Martelle

  Other books from LMBPN Publishing

  Chapter One

  Buddy, the big wolf/German Shepherd mix, was upside-down in the back seat of the truck, snoring loudly. Jim Wolfe removed his goggles, bringing the dog into focus.

  Sunlight caused Wolfe pain. His transformation was the result of spending two years underground after the bombs fell. When he emerged, he was able to see in the dark, and he was stronger—unnaturally so. His hair had turned white, and he could sense radiation.

  His body had adapted to the new world, even if he did not know it at the time. Wolfe pulled the handle and pushed the door open, sliding out without making a sound. The young girl who traveled with him, Jennifer, was curled into a ball in the front seat, sheltering herself from the outside as an armadillo might. He watched her to see if she would stir before carefully closing the truck door behind him.

  The fog had settled, making it dangerous to drive any farther. Seeing in the dark wasn’t the same as seeing through fog.

  Wolfe took stock of his surroundings, pacing around the truck before picking the direction they had been traveling and heading into the mist.

  He listened as he walked, his blowgun in one hand and his bow in the other. He did not want to eat the food the good people of Ashland had provided, not if he didn’t have to.

  A splash and swish. Brush moving when the air was still. On both sides of the road, water filled the ditches, extending as far as Wolfe could see. At the edge of his sight, a movement drew his attention. He stepped toward it, dropping his copper-tube blowgun and gripping his bow. With his free hand, he pulled an arrow from the quiver over his shoulder—one of his lesser arrows. He only had two more that had been made before the war. The rest had wood shafts and bird-feather fletching and were the best that could be made without technology.

  Good enough when hunting, but there was always the risk that they would not fly true. He trusted his strength and speed should an animal attack. He had yet to meet his match and did not expect to do so in the expanding swamps of the Arkansas-Louisiana border area.

  A splash jerked his attention to the left side of the road, and he heard a sound to the right. He crouched, using his peripheral vision to scan for movement. The gator burst out of the water, running straight for him. Wolfe fell sideways, launching the arrow high into the fog. He rolled and came back to his feet.

  The gator was on him. He jumped as the jaws opened, then snapped closed on the empty space where he had been. It continued for a few steps before its legs brought it to a halt. Wolfe came down with one leg on the thing’s back while it was trying to turn around and he stumbled and fell to the side. The gator turned toward him, its head twisting while it tried to get its body in position to charge again. Wolfe grabbed a back leg and pulled, jerking the gator’s head away.

  Wolfe jumped to his feet, hanging on to the leg, lifting the back half of the gator off the ground as he maneuvered away from its snapping jaws. He let go to wrap both hands around the gator’s tail. He pulled it off the ground and started to spin it around. He turned faster and faster as he staggered toward the side of the road. With a final lunge and twist, he accelerated the gator’s neck into a road sign’s metal post.

  He hoped it would cut the creature’s head off, but it didn’t. It barely dented the tough hide, but it was enough to stun the gator. Wolfe crawled to its head, straddling the swamp-stinking beast, then wrapped an arm under its throat and tried to choke it to death.

  The best-laid plans. Gators did not like being choked. When it came to, it started to thrash and twist, nearly breaking free of Wolfe’s grip. Wolfe worked his way to his feet, arched his back, and pulled the gator over him as he drove the creature’s snout into the pavement. Wolfe continued his wrestling move, rolling back on top. He pinned it to the ground while he removed his belt knife and jammed it hilt-deep into the skull.

  With a last contortion and twist, the creature died.

  Wolfe removed his knife, and for good measure, cut the gator’s throat.

  A vicious growl shot his heart into his throat. Wolfe dove across the gator, turned, and crouched with his knife ready. Buddy snapped and slavered at the dead gator. Jennifer stood next to him. Wolfe flopped to the ground, looking left and right to make sure they were safe before he relaxed.

  “What is it, Mister Wolfe?” Jennifer asked, the innocence of her question catching him off-guard. Buddy sniffed the body and started barking again. The young girl petted him to calm him down.

  “That is an alligator, Miss Jennifer. We have a lot of them down home in Florida, but I never thought they would be this far north.” Wolfe did not add, I am afraid this is not going to make our journey any easier.

  “Can we eat him?” She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

  “Now that, Miss Jennifer, is a treat you do not want to miss. The tail tastes like chicken.” Wolfe seized the creature by the tail and gestured for them to return to the truck, where their midnight snack would be carved up and cooked.

  Chapter Two

  Jim Wolfe crawled into the back of the truck and slept like a dead man. He was used to sleeping with his goggles on because he usually slept during the daytime. When the sun started burning off the fog, he started awake, wincing, and pinched his eyes closed until he was able to cover them. He scratched his head as he sat up. Jennifer and Bud
dy were inside the truck and still sleeping. They would wake up soon enough when it got warm.

  The remainder of the gator’s tail was wrapped in a cloth bag on top of the cab. A crow pecked at it.

  “Go on now!” Wolfe shooed the bird away. “There is plenty over there.” He pointed to where he’d cleaned the creature during the night, but there was nothing there. “What is big enough to take what was left of that gator?”

  He knew the answer but did not want to say it aloud. He pulled the tail into the truck bed and carefully looked around the area now that he could see. The road continued into the distance, raised above the water on either side.

  “At least that is in our favor. Have you always been a swamp?” he asked the murky waters. He could not remember ever having traveled these roads. They were country highways, not the interstate. Those high-speed, twin-lane roads traveled to and through areas that had been on the receiving end of the bombs and were hot zones now. The only way left for Wolfe to travel was on side- and backroads.

  He checked the ground for gators before jumping down. When he hit the earth, something shot out from under the truck, skimmed across the ground, and launched itself into the water. He saw that it was a four-foot gator, a relative baby, resting in the shade. Wolfe wondered if he and his fellows had made short work of the carcass. It was probably better not to know.

  He climbed into the truck and turned the key. The engine turned over slowly before catching and belching a cloud of blue smoke out the tailpipe. It grumbled and bucked before settling into the rattling purr of a truck with worn rings.

  Wolfe checked the disc, turned up Hank Williams, and put it in gear. The truck rolled forward easily and cruised easily at twenty-five miles per hour. The gas gauge was between a quarter of a tank and empty. Wolfe nudged the truck up to forty-five for the best gas mileage, taking care to watch as far ahead as possible.

  He would do what he had to to get back to Lurleen and JoJo, but he much preferred driving to walking. In two days, they had covered more territory than the three months prior. They were making good time and doing it in comfort.

  But when they ran out of gas—and he did not expect to find more—they would be back to walking. The longer he could delay that eventuality, the happier he would be.

  In the end, it was not the gas that held them back, it was the wreckage strewn across the road. Apparently, two semis had collided and left the entire one hundred and sixty thousand pounds they had been carrying in a single charred pile. Wolfe stopped the truck a hundred yards short and watched.

  “What are we waiting for?” The young girl, always practical, was readying her backpack, stuffing in the last of their prepared food. She dutifully checked around her seat to make sure she did not leave anything behind.

  “I want to be sure. Maybe you and Buddy can wait here while I check it out,” Wolfe suggested. She nodded, tight-lipped. He said no other words, simply got out of the truck and motioned for her to lock the doors before he left. He took only his rifle. The only predator he expected to find was man.

  Chapter Three

  Wolfe approached the wreck. He carried his AR-15 with a fully-loaded magazine inserted and a round in the chamber. He had taken the opportunity at the armory in Ashland to fill his pack and magazines, and now he had enough ammunition to fight a war. Most likely, knowing himself, he would trade it, or give it away to those in need.

  People were struggling in the new world, good people like the citizens of Ashland, who only needed a chance to throw off the burden of those who used their power for evil. Wolfe figured he would run into that again and again—strongmen filling the government void. And sometimes they were not even men, like the creature who led Paradise. He was happy that she was no more. He wondered how the people had fared after he left.

  Traded one tyrant for another, probably. It depressed him to think about it, but only for a moment. He had done all he was capable of doing, and he was committed to carrying that torch. If he saw injustice, he would address it. Lurleen and JoJo would understand. He felt they would think less of him if he did not help those in need.

  He wrapped those thoughts around him like a warm blanket. He could only imagine what doing right by his family meant. It had been so long since he had seen them that he was starting to forget little details. What did Lurleen listen to on the radio? Country, but she would flip over to the news at lunchtime. What was that station? It would not come to him.

  But he remembered every detail of her face, her smile, and the sparkle in her eyes. He blinked away the moisture that threatened his eyes and focused on the two semi-trucks in front of him.

  He slung his rifle when he found no signs of recent activity. The wreckage had been abandoned a long time ago. The heavily-rusted vehicles stood as a monument to the time of turmoil. Trails led through the wreckage, as if both people and animals had cleared a path to get from one side to the other. He worked his way to the other side, to find the open road leading into the distance.

  If only he could clear enough space to get by. The water and muck in the ditches were less than a swamp, and from what he could see, there were no tracks or indications that gators were nearby.

  He returned to the truck, flashing the okay sign. Jennifer opened the door to let Buddy out. The big dog ran down the road to sniff the wreckage. He raised his leg to mark his spot.

  Jennifer called him, and he happily ran back to her. She hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and shrugged it into place.

  “We might not be walking just yet, Miss Jennifer,” Wolfe told her. He waved her to the side as he carefully turned the truck around and backed up to the overturned trailer of one rig. The vehicles had already been cleaned out, scavenged for whatever they contained. At the back of the big rig’s cab, he wrapped a bundle of cables around his hand and pulled. It jerked toward him as it came free, but stopped when it hit another snag. Wolfe braced himself and pulled harder, pushing with his legs until a final yank broke it free. He lost his balance and stumbled, falling to the pavement. He brushed himself off and got back to work.

  Wolfe tied one end around a bracket in the middle of the forward section of the trailer bed. He tied the other end to the truck’s hitch, then climbed in and eased the truck forward to take the slack out of his ad hoc tow cable. Wolfe gave it some gas, but nothing moved. He jammed the pedal down, barking the rear wheels as they lost traction. There was nothing to lose. Either they were able to move the trailer far enough to create a gap through which they could drive or they walked.

  He jammed the pedal down and the truck accelerated, throwing Wolfe forward when it hit the end of the cable and jerked. The engine screamed as it started to move the mass. Wolfe bounced as he encouraged the truck to keep pulling, and it worked its way forward ten more feet before something popped in the engine compartment and steam funneled out. He put it in Park and shut down the engine.

  Wolfe looked at the truck without opening the hood.

  “Is it broke?” Jennifer asked. Buddy started to bark at the hissing coming from behind the grill.

  “Maybe a little,” Wolfe replied. “But I might be able to fix it. We have some tools and a pile of spare parts.” He pointed at the semis. “Something might work to get us back on the road. We will see once the radiator cools down.”

  When the steam stopped, Wolfe popped the hood so he could see which hose had failed. It was the coolant return line, the big hose with the hottest fluid. All he had to do was fix it well enough to hold water for another hundred miles, maybe less. They did not have a lot of gas left. If the big rigs had any remaining, it would have been diesel. Save five to ten days’ walking time to get another hundred miles behind them.

  As soon as he could work on it, he would. In the meantime, there were other things they could do to pass the time productively.

  “I say we cook up the last of the gator, and then you learn how to use the blowgun.”

  Chapter Four

  Wolfe wanted Jennifer to be a natural, but she hesitated
too long. Still targets like a small rock set in the distance, she could hit every time. But something like a frog? She waited and aimed and adjusted and waited some more before gulping a big breath of air with so much noise that it made the frog jump.

  “You have plenty of air.”

  “I am sorry, Mister Wolfe.” She did not continue her train of thought.

  “Keep at it. One after another until you are comfortable,” Wolfe encouraged the young girl. She was not as tall as she could have been for her age—twelve years old, but barely over four feet. She could have passed for younger, and people often thought she was. It did not matter to her or Wolfe. She ate well and was healthy. He rested his hand on his adopted daughter’s shoulder.

  She sent pellet after pellet into a target leaning against the truck. When she had emptied the small pouch, she skipped away to start picking them up. Wolfe moved to the side of the road and kicked dirt over their fire.

  “Can you start a fire without a lighter?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she replied, occupied with refilling her pouch. She found the small bearings from wherever they’d stopped rolling. He was amazed by her eyesight. With his welding goggles on in the daylight, he could see without pain, but things were a shade hazy because the welding goggles were impossible to keep clean and grit-free. They had been through the war.