From the Ashes Read online

  A third Clown joined the first two and began talking into a radio. Time to go, I decided, scooping up my pack. I raced across the building to the back stairs, just as the door opened—apparently, they had watchers in the building, probably on the roof.

  The man led with his pistol, and I hit the door at speed, slamming it shut on his flower-shirted arm. I heard the bone snap. I whipped the door open as I drew my pistol with my left hand. The Clown bent over, cradling his arm, but was thrown aside by another Clown coming down the stairs behind him.

  His reflexes were almost as good as mine, but I already had my pistol out, and I got two shots off while he was still drawing his. Both rounds hit him in the chest, stopping his momentum, but he didn’t go down. He winced, but kept raising his pistol. The two bullets in his chest had hurt him, though, and I stepped forward, slapped his pistol away, and fired one more time, hitting him between the eyes.

  That one did the trick, and he fell backward. Agent or not, he wasn’t getting back up after being brain-shot. I turned to go down the stairs and saw the first Clown shivering on the next landing. He appeared to be in a bad way—definitely not an Agent—but I shot him once through the head, anyway, as I went by.

  Always be sure your opponent is down.

  I raced down the stairs but only made it to the fourth floor before I heard people talking at the bottom of the stairwell. They made a lot of noise, which meant there were probably more non-imprinted than imprinted people coming. Two Clowns could probably take me down, so I ducked through the door onto the fourth floor.

  I thought about going to the front of the building, but realized they’d probably sent people up that stairway, too. They’d likely start spreading out to search the building, so time was critical. I needed another way out…and then I had it. The building was connected to the courthouse building next door by a two-story breezeway, and I could drop down to that, then climb down from there.

  When I got to the south windows, though, I saw I was wrong; it was only a one-story breezeway. I faced a two-story drop. I had just decided to try and lower myself down when the door to the back stairway opened.

  I stepped into the yawning abyss and fell 20 feet to the roof, holstering my pistol and pulling my rifle off my shoulder as I did. I bent my knees to absorb the fall and rolled forward, using my shoulder to absorb the rest of the momentum as I protected the rifle. Happily, the roof was flat and not covered in rocks, so I didn’t slide off to the ground below or get any more beat up than I had to. There was, of course, some glass, and I got up with a number of small nicks and cuts. I wasn’t worried about those; I knew my body could take care of them pretty quickly.

  I risked a glance back up, but no one appeared in the window, so I eased my way off the roof and headed west as fast as I could run. I hadn’t even crossed the street when I heard someone shout, “There he goes!” and the chase was on.

  At my best, I was more of a sprinter than a marathon runner, but I wasn’t at my best, nor was I going to outrun anyone who’d been modded to be a distance runner. Shots zipped by me, so I turned right on 8th Street, then left on Arch. It was only three blocks to the convention center, but I was already spent as I neared it, and I still had another block to go.

  The sound of gunfire had already drawn a number of people into the street. I’m not sure doing so was a good survival mechanism—humans are too damn curious for their own good, I guess—but I used them for cover, darting across the street and threading my way through them.

  I heard someone with a furry face get hit as I ran past, then several screams of pain or anger erupted behind me. There was a breezeway under the convention center at 12th Street, and I pumped my legs with all the endurance I had left as huge numbers of…inhabitants…of the convention center poured out the doors. I could hear a loud noise from inside; someone had apparently sounded the alarm, and the denizens were coming out to defend their territory. All of them appeared armed—with weapons, but also with claws and other natural forms of defense.

  The woman with talons flashed past, but since I was running, she must have decided I wasn’t the threat, and she sped off in the other direction. While I would have liked to see her fight a Clown, I would have had to hang around, which was something I wasn’t doing. I turned left as I cleared the convention center, with a quick glance behind me. Barring a burning desire to get to me, the Clowns weren’t getting past the convention center, not through the crowds gathered there. I could hear screaming and gunfire from the tunnel, but not as much as there would have been if the battle had truly been joined.

  I slowed to a fast walk and continued west, pretty pleased with myself. I could go home to Dr. Briggs and honestly tell her I hadn’t done anything grossly stupid. Sure, being seen wasn’t tactically brilliant, but I hadn’t hung around to…I don’t know…cut off a Clown’s finger and try to bluff my way into the mint. I had contemplated it, but I didn’t actually do it. She would probably see through my story, but it was worth a shot.

  I was so lost in self-congratulation that I didn’t notice the group waiting for me on the west side of the bridge until I was almost upon them. Don’t ever let your guard down in this Fallen World, I guess. All of them were wearing leather, and I knew I was in trouble.

  There was a big guy—burly, with red hair—waiting in front of the group, along with the guy who’d stopped me in Hearne’s zone. I quickly counted six more guys and a girl backing them up. All had pistols and looked as though they were very comfortable with them.

  “Gotta lotta nerve trying to come back through here,” the redhead said as I approached.

  “You must be Hearne,” I replied. “Sorry about your guys, but they drew on me.”

  “Shoulda paid the toll, then there wouldn’t have been any violence. That’s on you.”

  I shrugged. “As you can see, I had to come back through here, and if I had to give up a pistol each time, I would have ended up going home without either of them.” I gave him my winning smile. “I did give your man a pistol when I crossed your zone.”

  “Giving him one of our pistols doesn’t count,” Hearne replied. His glare told me the smile wasn’t working. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a large group forming behind me at the other end of the bridge. All of them were armed, and I doubted they were going to let me retreat; I was going to have to work this out on my own. Damn it. I sighed as discretion won out; I had made a promise to Dr. Briggs. “On second thought, I guess I could part with the pistols.”

  I drew one of my pistols and the second one I’d taken from his men, causing the group of toughs to aim their pistols at me, then I reversed them and held them out toward Hearne. The toughs relaxed a little.

  “That was the toll before you killed my men,” Hearne said. “Now it’s going to cost you all your weapons, including the rifle.”

  Well, shit. Giving him everything would put me at their mercy…and he didn’t look very merciful at the moment. I doubted I’d make it very far once I was unarmed. I started to argue, but then my shoulders slumped. “Okay,” I said. “Here you go.”

  My adrenal glands emptied into my system, and I took a step forward, then withdrew the pistols from Hearne’s reaching hands and threw them like knives. One hit Hearne in the left eye, and the other smashed the nose of the man with him. I dove to the left as I pulled my other pistol.

  In retrospect, going up against the seven support people really wasn’t my brightest idea, but I didn’t have Spade to talk me out of it. Still, I got five before one of them shot me in the leg, and the other two just after that. Then my pistol locked back, empty, giving Hearne and his tough time to pull their pistols.

  I reloaded, and the flunky went down with a bullet in the head and one in the chest, but Hearne shot me in the side before I could swing my pistol back to him and put him down. I watched the bodies for a moment, my side and leg on fire, but none of them seemed to be in the mood to get up. I staggered over to them. I had just enough rounds remaining to put one into each of their heads
before it locked back again. I put another mag in and looked back toward the east side of the bridge. Everyone on that side was watching, and they all looked eager to cross, but none wanted to be the first to take on the person who’d just beaten nine men.

  If they’d known how much pain I was in, they’d have rushed me.

  Keeping an eye on them, I pulled out some self-sealing bandages. The leg shot was an in-and-out wound that missed the bone. I put a bandage over both holes. The one in my side had caught a rib, though, and there was a lot wrong there. My body’d been engineered to heal quickly, but I had an awful feeling this injury was more than it could heal on its own; I would need help. Every breath was a struggle and caused me to see stars.

  The group at the end of the bridge was edging toward me, and a number of them had feral looks on their faces; I doubted they were going to help me. In fact, I doubted anyone in this city was honest enough to help. As soon as they had me at their mercy, I’d be done for.

  I scooped up a few of the pistols and put them into my backpack, then backed off the bridge, shuffling my feet to make sure I didn’t trip over something behind me. My leg didn’t work quite right, which didn’t help, but after a bit I figured out what I could and couldn’t do with it. The wound in my side was harder to work with, and I feared I was losing blood internally.

  As I cleared the bridge, the people on the other side surged forward and began stripping the people I’d shot. Several more ran in the opposite direction. My decision-making skills were getting a little hazy, but I had enough mental capacity left to realize there was now a power vacuum on this side of the river, and they might have been going back for more manpower to incorporate Hearne’s zone into theirs.

  I didn’t know and didn’t care; all I could think about was getting to my car and getting out of town. Eight blocks. I could make eight blocks. I hoped.

  The first five, while not easy, were manageable. I figured out how to stagger quickly. Maybe it was a shamble and not a stagger; my mind wasn’t clear enough to tell the difference. All I knew was it kept me going, although it probably wasn’t much faster than a slow walk. People avoided me, perhaps due to the pistol in my hand.

  Someone jumped out of an alley in the sixth block. I saw the motion, and it was enough to trigger my adrenal glands again. I didn’t have much adrenaline left, but it was enough to get the pistol up. The man fell back with a hole in his temple. I staggered on for a few moments before I realized my left arm hurt. I looked down; he’d obviously had a knife. There was a slice in my sleeve and blood welled out of it. I decided to fix it in the car and pressed on.

  The adrenaline boost carried me the sixth and seventh blocks, but then things started getting gray around the edges. I somehow made it to the car and got in, then decided to get out of town before fixing my arm. There were too many people congregating around me; it felt like the vultures were circling.

  I weaved around the downed trees, although I probably did a lot more weaving than needed to get around them. Then a tree appeared out of nowhere, and everything went black.

  * * *

  I woke up knowing I’d survived another near-death experience. The lighting was wrong for the hospital in Clanton—I could tell without opening my eyes, I’d been in it so much. My body had that worn out feeling like it had used up most of its energy healing itself. I was dead tired and ravenous.

  Still, I was alive, which I considered to be a very good thing. I hadn’t broken my promise to Dr. Briggs yet.

  I opened one eye and saw a woman looking at me. She was short, with dark hair, and her dark brown eyes inspected me with the precision of a doctor. Unfortunately, I knew the look too well.

  “Welcome back,” she said.

  “From where?” I asked, my brain not yet firing on all cylinders.

  She chuckled. “From being dead, mostly. It was a pretty near thing.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, mustering a small smile. I noticed a few other people in the room. They looked well cared for, and it took me a minute to figure out why. Finally, it dawned on me—unlike everyone else in this world, these people didn’t have that look of grinding malnourishment and fear. They looked well-fed and happy. Where the hell was I? The only well-fed people I’d seen recently were cannibals, so I struggled to push myself away from their smiling faces. “Where am I?” I asked. “Who are you people?”

  “Relax,” an older man said. “You’re safe here. We’re the Farmers.”

  * * * * *

  Chris Kennedy Bio

  A Dragon Award finalist, Chris Kennedy is a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Young Adult author, speaker, and small-press publisher who has written over 20 books and published more than 50 others. Chris’ stories include the “Occupied Seattle” military fiction duology, “The Theogony” and “Codex Regius” science fiction trilogies, stories in the “Four Horsemen” and “In Revolution Born” universes and the “War for Dominance” fantasy trilogy. Get his free book, “Shattered Crucible,” at his website, https://chriskennedypublishing.com.

  Called “fantastic” and “a great speaker,” he has coached hundreds of beginning authors and budding novelists on how to self-publish their stories at a variety of conferences, conventions and writing guild presentations. He is the author of the award-winning #1 bestseller, “Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores,” as well as the leadership training book, “Leadership from the Darkside.”

  Chris lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with his wife, and is the holder of a doctorate in educational leadership and master’s degrees in both business and public administration. Follow Chris on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ckpublishing/.

  * * * * *

  Spec Shey by Brisco Woods

  1

  She had shoulder-length red hair, as curly as only nature could make it. When I saw her in the crowd of travelers, she was already looking at me, and ours eyes locked. She headed directly toward me with a small half-smile on her pouty lips. Her emerald eyes were large and focused on me with a look that, I was sure, had made many men melt as she stalked up to me.

  I hit her in the solar plexus as hard as my nanite-enhanced arm could manage.

  More accurately, I tried to hit her in the solar plexus, but I only achieved a glancing blow to her side as she rotated away, moving faster than anyone ought to be able to. Having to shy away from me did take some of the force out of the kick that took my legs out from under me, though, so at least I had that going for me. I hit the ground and rolled back to my feet, but she was already attacking like a miniature tornado, and I knew I had to end it now if I was going to have any chance at all.

  “Was it something I said?” I asked while blocking attack after attack as if my life depended on it. I usually hate clichés, but that one fit.

  “Maybe I just don’t like you,” she said with a scowl and a cold look.

  I used every punch and kick I could come up with—anything to keep her distracted. She deflected a kick, grabbed my arm, and threw me over her hip in a wrestling move older than my grandad. I hurtled through the air and slammed into a wall, upside down. I looked up and saw her standing there with a sneer—not even breathing hard—but, I knew my ploy had worked.

  “I don’t understand why,” I said. “I’m a nice guy. Just ask me, I’ll tell you.”

  I winked, then ducked as my internal clock ticked off the fifth second. An instant of confusion begin to filter through the contempt in her eyes, then the mini-mine I had left on her collar detonated, and the explosion finished off the third Obsidian Agent I had bested.

  Those mini-mines were the best invention since the recoilless sniper rifle. Although uncommon—I had never seen one used outside of training—I was suitably impressed. They were super small, yet they had just enough explosive to breach a wall or re-enforced door. Or, as it turns out, an Obsidian Agent. And they stuck to almost anything except the gloves specifically designed for handling them.

  “Okay. Maybe not that nice,” I
muttered.

  The entire fight had taken about 45 seconds. I lunged for the door and out into the alley alongside the rail station. I knew I had been lucky. Obsidian didn’t know much about us, but they were learning. I had hoped it would take them a while longer to realize what Teledyne was doing and decide to do something about it. I shouldn’t have had such high expectations.

  “Hey, Mister, got a coin?” a kid asked as I came up to the corner on 44th.

  I grinned and tossed him the change in my pocket.

  “Thanks!”

  Ditching the trench coat that had Agent all over it in the alley, I blended into the foot traffic heading for the next station. Killing an Obsidian Agent was a high like none other.

  * * *

  2

  I finished my mission report and looked around the complex. It was an ancient beach resort that had been repurposed to serve as our living/training/working facility. The main floor of the building was a common space with areas designated for both work and daily life. The front was sectioned off into a dozen work areas that could be soundproofed and blacked out for private debriefings and training. The top floors had locker rooms, showers, and a gym. The basement held the medical facility, the armory, and the weapons ranges.

  I was a special case. Even among the specialists, I was different. I had volunteered for a different program, and seriously, who did that? It wasn’t a job you asked to do. In a world where we lived in fear of being the victim of a hostile takeover, who would walk into Teledyne Security and demand to join a service manned by mass murderers and serial killers?

  Me, me, pick me!

  There were always skirmishes going on between Teledyne and Obsidian, with soldiers dying for the right to survive. Entire areas of humanity were destroyed or assimilated.