Blood Runners: Box Set Read online

  Blood Runners

  Boxset

  George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Justin Sloan

  Absolution Press

  Copyright 2017 by George S. Mahaffey Jr. & Justin Sloan

  This is a work of fiction and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  1

  Marisol, or “Sling,” as some of the Olders called her, held her rifle at shoulder level to peer through the scope, searching, hunting. The dark blue skies of pre-dawn cast a blue hue across New Chicago, and then she saw him, saw the man in the window, always staring out from that skyrise, one of the few that remained, gazing in her direction.

  Well, not her specifically, but to the barracks inhabited by the hunters, the area where she and the other so-called “Apes” lived.

  Their predecessors, cops and national guardsmen and the like, had worked to restore law and order after First Light (the local euphemism for the Unraveling, the purported solar storm that ended the old ways) and the populace, upon seeing them arrive for the first time in their militarized, then-shimmering black gear and body armor, had nicknamed them Apes.

  The name stuck and the youngest of the Apes, Marisol, took some small measure of satisfaction from seeing images in the basin of the long-dead creatures with their muscle-quilted bodies and silver backs and faces seemingly screwed up in perpetual disgust. They were strong and powerful, and so was she.

  Even though she had no idea who the man watching her was, she wanted to pull the trigger and watch him fall. Anyone who peered in the direction of the Apes often had to have sins enough worth dying for. An infatuation with their trade meant a love of death.

  But she couldn’t give him that gift today. It wasn’t her place, and honestly, the rifle wouldn’t shoot that far. She and the other Apes were segregated, kept far enough away from the populace, from what was left of the great unwashed masses.

  Life in the barracks could be cold and cruel, but it was still better than being outside of the city. Out there, beyond the New Chicago’s great wall was darkness and the horrible things that toiled there… the Threshers. She’d never seen one personally, but she had heard stories. Rumors mostly … creatures that survivors only whispered about. Nightmarish, rapacious, brain-cleansed beasts. Humanoid animals, long-limbed abominations with skin as white as mushrooms and burned-out eyes that hid a demonic madness.

  Yeah, she’d take this ostracized lifestyle any day over being cast out to deal with them.

  She turned to her duty of the night, picking up the blood stained knife and shirt, and moving to the bathtub to scrub them. As often as possible, she kept her distance in a hunt. However, more often than she liked to admit, she had to move in for the kill, feeling the life drain out around her hand as she sunk her blade into flesh.

  It disgusted her, but it also filled her with wonder. Wonder at the delicate nature of existence.

  The blood washed from the knife easily enough, but not so the shirt. Disgusted and drained, she stripped bare and stepped into the tub, scrubbing at herself now, fighting to get clean. No matter how long she lived as a Hunter, the sensation of feeling somehow unclean would never truly go away, she imagined.

  That’s what Farrow told her, anyway. When they had gone on their first hunt together, he saw the look in her eyes and said, “Embrace the darkness. Let that feeling become one with you. Better to embrace it than spend a lifetime fighting in futility.”

  And embrace it she had, she thought as she toweled off and stepped from the tub. There wasn’t another Hunter alive now that could keep up with her. She had smoked them all, and meant to keep it coming too. Being the best kept her alive, and it kept her in the need.

  Born several summers before First Light, she was nearly six feet tall, with a wave of copper-colored hair knotted on top, the tiniest piercing on the right side of her nose, and arms and legs that were sinewy and limber after years of successful hunts.

  And because of her success during the hunts, she received the assurance that none of the other Hunters would ever touch her. That they would allegedly defend her to their last breath if needed. Yeah, she’d say that was worth training her ass off all day every day.

  Standing there with the toasty, dry air of her room warming her still slightly damp skin, she considered her bed and the panties and t-shirt she had put out for the night. But it was early still, and in spite of her rule that she train harder than everyone else, she believed wholeheartedly that rewards had to be part of one’s routine.

  Another successful hunt deserved another successful trip into the city for a drink. Shit, she might even have two or three. They might help wash away those last dying groans and whimpers that she never could quite block out without the help of some good, old-school basement hooch. Honestly, the underground spirits were horrible stuff, but after the senior Apes had basically forced it down her throat one night to jeers and hollers, she learned to almost enjoy the stuff. She liked it enough to return for it on nights like this, anyway.

  She dressed, putting on one of seven black outfits she wore, all made of some repurposed compression material that was the required wear for her and the other Apes. It clung tight to her body like a second skin, with red lines like blood running up each side. If they were caught out in the city not wearing the sign of the Hunters, the punishment could be severe. And if they engaged in a brawl or spilled civilian blood without the outfit to let the opponent know they were Hunters, well, they might as well throw themselves to the Threshers.

  Ducking out a rear entrance and sneaking around the barracks, not that she wasn’t allowed, but because she really preferred to be alone right now and so didn’t want to be spotted, she crouched and ran for the gateway. She was relieved to reach it without anyone challenging her, and then angled sideways, away from it toward a wall that she gingerly hopped over.

  Marisol paused on the other side of the wall, crouching, waiting to see if footsteps or shouting followed her. Nothing. All clear.

  The grass was moist from a late afternoon drizzle, but not so slippery that it impeded her descent.

  She made her way across a depression in the earth, then turned to follow the canal that zigzagged along toward the heart of the city and that damned tower with the silhouette of the man who’d earlier been staring at her, still visible in the window.

  Alone in her thoughts, Marisol massaged her neck and wondered what life was like for the elite in their fancy towers and skyscrapers that crowned the ground near the horizon. After the sky had fallen and that first seemingly endless night smothered the land, an America that had been slowly sipping at perdition finally took a knee.

  The people that survived what came after the end of the machines, the riots, looting, fire-bombings, convulsions, and generally trying times, hunkered down in fortified keeps in the interior of cities like Chicago, which became a sort of permanent Gaza Strip/flea-market meld inhabited by the terrified and downtrodden, of which Marisol was one before she’d found her place among the Hunters.

  Not all had been so lucky though, as the ghettos of the city showed.

  To protect the populace, the decision had been made after the world ended to build a wall around everything, an incongruity of metal and wood that stood on the other side of what was once the South Branch of the Chicago River.

  Over the last several years, the wall was strengthened with lengths of stout wood, cinderblock, metal beams, and whatever could be pried loose from the city’s industrial past. Checkpoints were a
dded and haphazardly built turrets constructed over low points, the wall soon dividing “New Chicago” from the Q-Zone, the quarantine zone, and all the mysteries that lay beyond.

  In spite of the wall (or perhaps because of it), the buildings littered around the center of New Chicago had soon started to sag, the pipes throughout the city burst apart, with thick grass and foliage sprouting up in great abundance through nearly every inch of buckled asphalt and cement.

  The living kept to themselves and shared “leftover logs”—lists with the names of survivors who’d lived through the Unraveling—along with vegetables and other goods they managed to scavenge and grow in greenhouses and small plots of green up on the tops of towering, soot-stained buildings that rose out of the smudged sky like the horns on the head of some great beast.

  The survivors kept vigil behind boarded-up windows and bolted doors and lived for the light. In the early years after the Unraveling, they’d ceded the night and the streets and all the lands beyond them to the misshapen things that moved under cover of darkness.

  Marisol preferred not to think of this though, instead turning to look out beyond the city limits and over the sinuous banks of a wide river that curled through the center of town. Out there and beyond the wall, nature had long ago reclaimed much of what it had given up in the prior decades. Vast prairie-fields that had been denuded in the rush for farmland and acreage for corn and soy biofuels sprang up once again. Illimitable vegetation took hold in the prairie-fields, along with other things, creatures that survivors only whispered about at first.

  The Thresher.

  The thought of the dead-eyed monsters was enough to send a chill up her spine, so she wrapped her arms around herself and hunkered down, eyes on the gravel path before her. That’s when she saw the purple glow of light reflecting on damp cement ahead. Marisol looked up and smiled.

  “The Fallen Hero,” she said, reading the name of a local bar with a smile. “My only friend.”

  As if in welcome, the bar’s sign blinked off for a moment before flashing back on with a spark, and she laughed. “It’s good to see you too. Now give me a goddamn damn drink, you asshole.”

  Each step felt a little lighter now, excitement boiling up inside her.

  A hissing sound came from nearby and she passed the corner of the building to see a man standing there, pissing. He turned to face her, not bothering to cover himself or even to stop urinating.

  “Come on, man,” she said, shielding her eyes as he shook. She kept walking, but heard a zip and then footsteps. She stopped. She could hear the man advancing on her and so she warned him, “Walk away, dickhead.”

  “You’re one of them,” the guy said.

  She turned and he pointed at her.

  “Hey, you got a problem with me? You’re not better than me, you’re a piece of shit!”

  She paused, watching trickles of piss running down the front of his worker pants. The guy was sloshed.

  “I’m just here for a drink” she said.

  “My son was a Runner. Keyword, was. He was gunned down by one of your people.”

  “Then he did his duty for the survival of society,” she said, and nodded. She tried to turn, but the man closed the distance between them quickly and she found his thick hand on her shoulder. On instinct, she turned with a fist forming and then clocked him across the jaw.

  He fell to the ground with a yelp, and sat there staring up at her with fury.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “I really am. But that doesn’t give you the right to touch me. Now get the hell out of here.”

  She walked off, relieved to hear he wasn’t following. The last thing she needed right now was to have to beat the hell out of him and get in some serious trouble. Double doors soon opened to the smell of fermented bread and potatoes, sweat-slicked men and women, and—she sniffed and cringed—yes, that was definitely vomit. Sometimes having an enhanced sense of smell wasn’t a good thing.

  Sitting in the corner, by himself in the shadows, was Farrow. Clad in a tactical vest and black pants, Farrow was just turning the corner on forty, a broad-shouldered, hulking bruiser with a surprisingly soft side. A broad grin splashed across her face.

  “The hell are you doing here?” he said when he looked up to see her standing over his table. “Stalking me, I see.”

  “Something like that. Or, maybe the world just doesn’t revolve around that gigantic head of yours. Besides, a lady can get herself a drink every now and again, right?”

  He laughed. “Sit down then. What’ll it be?”

  She gave him a look and a wink and he laughed, then motioned for the bartender to bring another glass of the only drink they served--a mixture of fermented bread and potatoes, which explained the stench.

  “Have mine while we wait,” he said, sliding it over. “It’s my second anyway.”

  “Aw, you sweetheart.” She took a swig and had to suppress her gag reflex, then swallowed. She soon took another slug of the liquid that tasted like a combination of mouth-wash and battery acid.

  Farrow laughed. “You should see your face every time you take a drink.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Imagine a donkey. Now imagine that donkey getting rammed by an elephant, while someone screams in one ear and someone else sticks dead rat guts up its nose,” Farrow said, laughing. “That’s you, girl!”

  She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or vomit at the thought of that. Instead she just took another swig, trying her best to control her expression this time.

  He laughed, and nodded his thanks to the bartender for bringing the second drink. She waited for him to drink, and made a tsking sound as he swallowed, straight faced.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” she said in awe.

  He smiled, but looked down at his black suit, then over to hers. His finger reached out and traced the red line of her sleeve, then pulled back for another gulp. “Drink enough of these, it’s like second nature.”

  She nodded, wondering if he was still talking about the drinks.

  “The other guys… they treating you well?” he asked. “Nothing I need to worry about?”

  The levity drained from her face.

  “I can take care of myself, Farrow.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should have to. I got your back, any time, any place.”

  The blood rushed to her head, and she wasn’t sure if she was blushing or feeling the effects of the alcohol. “To my valiant hero,” she said, mockingly, raising her glass.

  “To the most badass chika I’ve ever known,” he said in response, his own glass raised. They clinked glasses and each took long swigs.

  “You realize this stuff is nasty, right?” she asked.

  He laughed. “The worst. But, there’s nothing else, so it’s also the best.”

  She smiled and gave a nod of acknowledgement. The window showed her reflection, and for a moment she stared at the red lines running along the side of her black suit, then sighed.

  “Does it ever get easier?” she asked.

  “I assume we’re not talking about the drink, huh?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, not really. But it’s like taking a shit. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it stings like a bitch, but it’s something you gotta do if you want to eat … and live, for that matter.”

  She cringed. “That was wildly gross and, yet, a perfectly accurate simile.”

  “That’s what I do,” he said with a final gulp of his drink. “Help you survive, while educating you on the ways of the world.”

  She finished her drink and stood, then pretended to dodge left, then right, hands up as if boxing. “You want to teach me something, come try me in the ring and see what happens.”

  “After what you did to Lefty last time? No way in hell. I prefer my nuts to work, should I ever need them.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. It wasn’t her fault the guy had tried to grab a boob in the middle of a sparring ma
tch, and it wasn’t her fault that her natural instinct was to pound a dude’s nuts whenever they attempted anything of the sort.

  He deserved what he got.

  The laugh was cut-short by an image outside, something just past her reflection. The guy who had accosted her outside stood glaring on the other side of the window.

  “Is this a problem?” Farrow asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Just a little pest,” she said, ignoring it, until the douchebag slammed his hand against the glass, glaring at her.

  Farrow stood, and the guy flipped him off.

  “Yeah, okay,” Marisol said at that, and the two went for the door.

  The guy was waiting, a wicked smile making his face look even uglier, if that was possible. As soon as Marisol and Farrow stepped away from the door, three of this guy’s buddies stepped out from the shadows, all looking tough and pissed.

  “This is the bitch I told you about,” the man said.

  “And I was going to give you a chance to run,” Farrow said, his smile fading. “But now you insulted my friend right in front of my face. So instead, I’m going to give you a chance to leave here with just an ass-kicking, no broken limbs. Now apologize to the young lady.”

  “Go sit on this,” the man said, pulling a knife from where he’d been concealing it behind his back.

  “Yeah, see that’s kinda the wrong answer.”

  Farrow moved in a blur, and a moment later Marisol was cursing and moving in for the fight too. The man had his cohorts to back him up, but that didn’t help him given the speed with which Farrow moved.

  The knife was swung and Farrow blocked it, latching a hand onto the attacker’s wrist and snapping the man’s arm so that he fell to the ground with a shriek, his arm hanging at an unnatural, sickening angle.

  The largest of the other attackers swung for Marisol.

  The man’s fist caught her jaw, sending her to the ground. Pissed that she’d been struck, she pushed herself up and ducked under his second swing, and came in with a punch of her own to the man’s now-exposed ribs. Farrow was there a moment later, kicking the man’s knee out, so that Marisol was able to turn to the other two attackers.