Sixteen Seconds, Chapter Five Sample
I haven’t done a lot of promoting lately for the novel. I know it’s difficult to determine whether or not you’re going to enjoy a book by the blurb. I am posting chapter five from Sixteen Seconds here so you can have a bit more to work with. The full length novel is available on Amazon and Smashwords as an ebook, and on Amazon in print if you prefer the tangible. You can also read a sample for free from either site. The story moves fast with plenty of action and I hope you enjoy it.
Sixteen Seconds, Chapter Five
“Shit.” Roland brought his hand to his mouth, using his depleting saliva to clean the new wound on his finger. Wiping off the blood, he inspected the injury. Not too deep. As long as he kept it clean he’d be fine. An infection these days could kill a man. Five seconds. Not that he cared much. The funny thing was, death didn’t scare him anymore. Fear required thinking. It took too long. Fear wasn’t worth it. Death lost a pocket ace in the apocalypse.
Donavan Street, Shovley, and then down Delaney; Roland headed away from the burnt out remnants of the city’s center. There was nothing left there. Too many scavengers, ravenous looters, and drones picked the remaining sundry supplies clean. He would have to do it the hard way, door to door, pilfering cabinets for canned food and basements for stored water. Roland survived this long because he was patient and diligent in his searches. He’d spent many days without food, growling back at his stomach and recycling his saliva to prevent his tongue from turning to dust. Occasionally he would get lucky. Two weeks ago he’d actually found a make-shift storm shelter in a suburban basement stocked with supplies; food, water, ammunition, batteries, first aid supplies, even shaving razors and soap. Those damn thieves were probably shaving right now. Seven and a half seconds. Roland shook his head. All the supplies were gone now. They’d all been at the camp. Why hadn’t they just stayed in the shelter? Six seconds. He was slipping. Back to the important part: Water. One word. One, oh so important little word.
Roland jogged through the streets under the slanted eyes of the wooden skeletons that used to be buildings. The industrial area separating downtown from the outskirts felt like a dungeon. Nothing lived here. Even the wild dogs avoided the area. Structures collapsed fairly regularly, toppling onto whatever happened to be in the path. Roland did not want to tempt fate. Using more energy than he knew he should, he quickened his pace. The break in uniform gloom could be seen beyond the cross street that bordered the old train tracks. Houses speckled the avenues in the distance. He’d have to go farther. He’d been here before. There was nothing left to take. Four streets down. First right. First left. Write them down. Four seconds. He stopped long enough to pull out the remnants of a notebook. Missing both covers and half the spiral binding, Roland resorted to a string tied around it like the ribbon on a gift. This only made it more of an inconvenience to use. He quickly jotted down the street names. He kept track of the places he’d salvaged. No sense in wasting time doubling your own tracks. Not much sense in trying to remember for too long either. That took focused thought.
Massive multi-story house, gated all the way around. Cement block wall along the back. Five seconds. He could get over the wall. There’s no way the drones would be in there. Might make for a good base. Enough thinking. No time. Adjusting the weight of his pack on his shoulders, Roland started around the back of the house and realized he immediately had a problem. The block wall sat at the top of an almost sheer face dirt hill that descended at least twenty feet down. There was no way to climb up it directly. One would have to do a balancing act atop the chain link and razor wire front fence to reach the access to the rear wall. At that point you might as well brave the barbed wire and tumble over the front fence. Roland crested the incline and changed his mind on that. Along the inside of the front fence for at least three feet in every direction, there were animal traps. Large, rusted, metal hinged monsters with gaping jaws and teeth made for shattering bone waited for you on the ground. This place had been set up for defense. That could mean it was still occupied. Roland had no gun. He carried several knives and a set of old brass knuckles, but no gun. Whether or not the owner still resided in their fortress was hard to distinguish. There were no tire tracks of recent crossing the property. No smells of food came from the home. No sound could be heard. Roland saw no footprints in the silt like dirt across the front yard. It was worth the risk. What else was he going to do today?
The toes of his boots found difficult perch in the links of the fence, but he was able to get a grasp and pull himself up enough to struggle for new holds. Using the sleeves of his shirt tugged up around his palms like gloves, Roland managed to grip a strand of the wire between two barbs. He was up, one foot on the edge of the brick wall and the other pushing off the fence to land precariously next to the first on the eight inch wide shelf they now occupied. From his new height, Roland could see into the back yard and up to the door. Relieved, he found the pathway clear and shifted his balance to take another step. Relief did not last long. As he moved forward, a sharp tug pulled him back. A strand of the wire was loose and had found refuge in the mesh on his backpack. Momentarily off kilter, Roland turned, struggling to free himself of the barbs, succeeding only in tangling it worse. If he tried to take the pack off, he’d surely slip. There didn’t seem to be another option at this point. Cautiously he unthreaded one arm from the strap, teetering on the ledge of the cement blocks, failing to avoid looking over his shoulder at the drop below him. The sun-bleached dirt beamed with the sparkles of broken glass, spotted here and there with football size rocks and angry dry shrubbery. With one arm free, Roland grappled with the wire still linking his pack to the fence. He had wire cutters in the bag, if he could get it open from this sideways tightrope walk. He could ditch the bag. Fight with it later. Six seconds. He needed the bag for supplies, along with the lock pick kit he’d gratefully discovered last summer. Frustrated with the inability to think it through, Roland gave the bag a hard tug. That did it. The previously unflinching wire let go, but not of the bag. The force of Roland’s yank separated the wire from the fence, giving a sudden slack and sending Roland backwards, boots losing their placement on the wall.
“Shit.” His protest fell from his lips as he plummeted towards the earth below. First contact met him at the conclusion of a drop almost twice as far below as Roland was tall, due to the incline. His head hit against solid stone, and the rest of the plunge went black.
Scratching sounds. Feet in the dirt. Bodies against bodies, crowding and blocking out the sun. Roland’s eyes wouldn’t open. Something thick and crusty seemed to prevent his lids from rising. Pieces of memory came back. He’d fallen. Damn it. Was he still at the bottom of the hill? The feel of the ground beneath him answered his unspoken query. Roland lay face down in the dirt at the base of the precipice, arms beneath him useless until he could place them. Sliding his left arm from underneath his abdomen, he wiped at his eyes. Dried blood. That’s why he couldn’t see. How long had he been out? Five seconds. Pay attention Roland. Through the slit of his right eye, he could suddenly see the severity of his situation. He was down, weak, and surrounded. They were all over; drones. Most wore little more than rags at this point. Their clothes, long since neglected, merely wore away. They investigated him as he lay there, unsure of what to do. He’d better get up, get out of there. Four seconds. Propping himself up on a bent elbow, Roland tried to count the herd. Ten, maybe fifteen of them paced the area, all sizes and degrees of despondency. His movement backed them up. They must have thought he was dead. Scavengers. Out of the corner of his eye, Roland could see the backpack several feet above him. Climbing to his knees, he eyed the pack around him. They never looked scared, but something shone in the eyes of the closest four. They were hungry, and he’d been dinner. Was it disappointment he saw? Could they even be capable of such an emotion? Six seconds. It didn’t matter. Time to go.
A sharp pain ran through Roland’s ankle, worsening with the weight he attempted to put on it. The ankle gave out. He was down again, on his side. The ground behind him crunched audibly with footsteps approaching. Lifting his torso up once more, he tried to look behind him. Before he could turn his head, a quick pinching, almost like a vice closing and opening, and the sound of cloth ripping sparked his anger. He flipped over, facing the offender. One of the larger of the pack stood a foot away, a piece of denim from his jeans hanging out of its mouth. Blood rose to the surface of the wound on his calf.
“Are you kidding me?” Roland yelled at the drone. “Did you just fucking bite me?”
He anticipated no answer. It was merely an exercise in venting. He’d expected the group to back up when he spoke, but they did not. They did exactly the opposite. They moved closer together, circling in on him as he crouched there. A jolt of fear ran through Roland, surprising him as he typically ignored the sentiment. This time it was an impulse he couldn’t escape. Their eyes focused on the wound on his leg, the red blood trickling into the dirt, clotting into brown mud beneath him. Get up. Move. Run. Again, Roland pushed his pain tolerance as he rose to his feet. Like snakes striking, the two larger drones sided up to him. The first grabbed at his arm while the second made another move to bite his thigh. Instinctively, Roland swatted the initial assaulter away, shuddering at the feeling of the flesh against the back of his hand. The first hit the ground, crawling backwards towards the pack.
“Back off, fucking monsters.” Roland’s confidence rose, watching them retreat a few steps.
It didn’t last long. Responding to some unheard command, the group rushed at him. Somewhere in his mind something screamed “They’re just children.” It didn’t matter. Logic was lost when all the clocks stopped. Children or not, they intended to take him down. This was pack mentality. Test for weaknesses, attack, test, attack, wait, regroup, attack in full. The first two that reached him dove under his blow, affixing themselves to his wounded leg, pulling at his injured ankle, trying to bring him to the ground. As he focused on shaking off the primary assailants, the rest of the pack moved in. They were all over him, swarming him like a noxious cloud of flies. They smelled of rotten garbage and old meat, fingernails like filthy razors and tiny mouths biting everywhere they could reach. Roland fell to his side. There were simply too many. He couldn’t get them off of him. Two for each arm, three for each leg; several just snapped and growled, trying to get a piece of whatever they could attain. His fist struck bone and skin over and over. They cared nothing for the pain. It only stopped them long enough for another to take their place. The thought wouldn’t leave him alone. This is how I’m going to die? After all of this! Really? No…
“LYRIQUE!”
Roland dug his fingers into hair, pulling and ripping to clear a line of sight. A voice, female, rang out from somewhere close by. Another swing cleared the two closest to his face, allowing an instant of sight from his curled up position on the ground. Black fur, gleaming white teeth, and a flash of red came barreling into the pile. Limbs flailed and bodies went flying like bowling pins at the end of the lane. Roland rotated onto his stomach and closed his eyes, covering his face with both hands. He could hear the snapping of bones and the tearing of fabric. The sunlight against his eyelids grew stronger. He was no longer surrounded. He opened his eyes to see the pack retreating down the street. Two lay near him, off to the left, injured but not dead. Blank eyes returned his gaze. Couldn’t have been more than eight years old…
“Ugh.” The air escaped Roland’s lungs in a cloud as something heavy came down on his back. Two feet… Paws? He couldn’t turn his head to see, but a shadow was hovering over him. It had to be a bear. It was pure mass and unmovable weight. Four seconds. Roland might as well have been a pile of dirty laundry for all the sway he held beneath those paws.
“Lyrique, stand down.”
The command took the pressure off of him, and he whipped around to a sitting position, fingering his knife he’d been unable to get at beneath the pile of drones. Unsheathing it, he faced his new foe. Sitting patiently at the feet of its owner was the biggest dog Roland had ever seen. Clearly a Rottweiler, the dog panted and stared at him, head cocked sideways and tongue lolling out to the right. It looked perfectly harmless now, maybe even a little goofy. The owner, however, was far from playful. She stood a good half foot shorter than Roland, dark hair a mess of braids and beads, eyes shielded by tinted aviator glasses. The sun glinted around her, reflecting from the glass ornaments she adorned herself with. She might have been twenty five. She might have been thirty five. Roland couldn’t tell. Her clothes hung loosely over her frame, which was indistinguishable in her attire. A long machete hung at her side and a nine millimeter pistol rested, clipped to her thick leather belt. She wore brown work boots that appeared a few sizes too large and what may have been a pair of riding pants years ago. Now they were pieced together by patches of leather and thick string. She offered no smile, but ignored both weapons and stepped closer to Roland. The dog followed, like a shadow, always at her side.
“You all right?” Her voice was low, calm, possessing a resonance of authority he hadn’t expected.
Roland simply sat there, returning his knife to its sheath, knowing if she wanted to kill him it would take but a word to the dog. “I’m fine. Just a few holes.” He winced as he tried to stand, slowed by the throbbing in his ankle and the sudden change of stance in the dog.
“Easy, Lyrique.” The girl repeated the word, leading Roland to guess it was the dog’s name.
“Thank you.” Roland extended a hand, finally, standing precariously on his injury. “I’m Roland.”
The girl and the dog both stared at his hand like it were a dead fish. To his surprise, she laughed. “You’re welcome. I suppose we’ve forgotten our manners.” She stepped forward, Lyrique watching cautiously. Her hand grasped his, slender fingers a feminine contrast, but strong and calloused, just as rough as his own gravel buffered skin. “I’m C. This is Lyrique.” A giant paw went up into the air, looking for a handshake of her own.
Roland couldn’t help but laugh, wondering at how long it had been since he’d genuinely found any amusement. He stepped forward slowly and took the offered paw. “Nice to meet you, Lyrique. Leereek.” He mimicked the pronunciation, chuckling as she massacred his hand with a giant wet tongue, letting go of her paw and stepping back. “Cool dog.”
C, as she called herself, laughed again. “She’s my bitch.” Lyrique’s head snapped to the side to look at her owner, letting out a simultaneous snort. C just stared back at her and stuck her tongue out. “Well, you are.”
Another deliberate huff came from the dog before she sat down and pretended to ignore the humans in her presence. C glanced back at Roland. “Your ankle is broken isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I think so. It hurts like hell.”
C gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “I have a truck parked a few blocks back. I’ll come get you.”
Roland began to protest, although he didn’t know why. He had no other options. “You don’t have to help me any more than you have.” He stuttered, knowing his time wore thin but feeling it necessary to complete the sentiment. “You already saved my life.”
She was walking away before he completed his strained sentence, Lyrique at her side, red bandana catching the sun. With her back to him, she called over her shoulder. “What the hell else are you going to do?”
