Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands by Brian J. Jarrett Read Free Book Online

to fight the desire to gather his family and run. They were bound now, bound to whatever decisions those in the trucks made for the group.
    He could only hope they were right.

Chapter Ten

    Lester allowed the couple to pass before stepping out onto the road behind them. He spoke to them. “Hello there.”
    The two travelers turned quickly, or as quickly as the ridiculous sacks stretched across their shoulders would allow. The boy dropped his while he fumbled in his waistband for what Lester could only assume was a weapon, probably a knife or maybe a gun. The girl regarded him with a worried look on her face, but she didn’t attempt to retrieve any sort of weapon at all.
    Lester waited while the boy fished around in his pants, eventually retrieving a small hand gun. Lester supposed there was some chance that the kid would panic and shoot, but that was the chance one took. Instead of shooting, the kid pointed the pistol, hands as steady as an eighty year old grandmother with Parkinson’s.
    Kids. What fucking idiots they were. That said, the whole thing had been a fun little surprise. The look on their faces was priceless.
    “Whoa, partner. I’m not going to hurt you,” Lester said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.
    “Who the heck are you?” the kid said.
    Heck. How fucking droll. “Name’s Lester. And you are…?”
    The boy regarded him cautiously, obviously unsure of what to do next. He kept glancing over at the girl, who slowly lowered her own pack to the ground before placing her hand on a matching pistol of her own. Finally, she reacts . Clearly they hadn’t thought this far ahead.
    “Sam,” the kid answered.
    “Good to meet you, Sam.” Lester turned to the girl. “And who might you be, miss?”
    Tall and good-looking, with a fresh face despite the treacheries of the world, the girl regarded him with well-placed suspicion. “Chloe,” she eventually said.
    Lester smiled. Smiling helped to put people at ease, so he did a lot of it in his line of work, at least during his work as a psychiatrist before the virus. “Good to meet you both. What brings you two out here on this lonely old road?”
    “What do you want?” Chloe said, taking a step back.
    “Look, I’m not going to try to hurt you,” Lester said. “I don’t want anything you have. It’s just been a long time since I’ve seen anybody. A person gets lonely talking to themselves all day.”
    The two didn’t look convinced, so he continued. Up next from the arsenal: the pity card.
    “I had two boys, around your age,” Lester said, pointing to Sam. “Well, they would’ve been if the virus hadn’t…” he trailed off, watching their faces. The boy’s stare started to soften, but the girl remained stoic. “My wife, she passed first. Very early on. I lost both boys shortly after.” Lester trailed off, his gaze becoming unfocused. That always worked to sell it. A few seconds later he snapped himself out of his feigned introspection. “How about you? Did either of you lose someone you loved?”
    Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Chloe cut him off. “We’ve all lost somebody,” she said, her tone curt and her glare harsh and bold.
    “Very true,” Lester replied. So the girl is in charge here. Interesting . “Where are you two from?”
    The pair paused again. Lester could almost see the wheels turning in their head. He loved this part, the part where they decided whether or not to trust him. It was like a dance, part of the courtship one might say.
    “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. It’s only conversation. I used to be a psychiatrist, so I’m used to talking to people.”
    The two glanced at each other. This time Sam spoke. “Illinois.”
    “Really? I pegged you as a Kansas boy. You’re a long way from home, Sam.”
    “You could say that.”
    “How about you, Chloe?” Lester asked.
    “Kansas,” Chloe added.
    “Really? How’d you two end up in Colorado?”
    “Our parents moved us around a lot,” Sam