Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island by Jason Frost - Warlord 05 Read Free Book Online Page A

far he had already gone toward being like Deena. Like Fallows. There had been many, many nights he had considered sneaking off in the darkness and leaving D.B. behind. This quest of revenge and rescue was no place for her, he’d rationalized, knowing all along that if he left her, her chances of survival were greatly reduced. And sometimes not caring. There were times, in fact, when he wasn’t sure if he wanted Fallows more for revenge than to free Tim.
    There were different kinds of survival. Survival of the body. But of what use was that if the person you had spent your whole life becoming was lost in the process. That was a kind of suicide.
    Seeing Deena panting after them last night, her one missing eye sealed over with scars like rubber zippers, her missing ear a puckered hole, she had seemed like a new species of animal. Attractive, yet marked. Her life of amorality had made him want to run to her. Sign up for the program. And that moment made Eric afraid. Had he pulled his trigger then, it would have been for the wrong reason: because of what she represented to him, what he feared in himself. He’d had to let her live, to prove when confronted with such choices, he could still make the right decision.
    So far.
    Eric picked up his crossbow and slung the quiver of bolts across his chest. “Let’s see if we can scavenge some better clothing than this before it cools down tonight.”
    “Actually,” D.B. said lightly, “what we’re wearing looks a lot like what fashionable couples wear on the French Riviera. Not that I’ve been there, but I’ve seen pictures in Cosmopolitan .”
    She chatted on as they hiked, discussing certain singers she liked or didn’t like, talking about her record collection, which before the quakes had occupied two entire walls of her bedroom, but after the quakes had occupied five 33-gallon garbage cans. Eric, as usual, was quiet, responding rarely. He found some prickly pears, peeled the sharp spines, and fed them both. He spotted some fresh rabbit tracks and traced them to a small pond. He filled the vinyl bag he’d made from the leftover seatcover with water.
    They stayed away from any signs of people.
    That night Eric made camp. While D.B. gathered firewood, he scouted ahead. A mile away he found a wide shallow grave. He dug up the bodies. Two women and four men were buried. The two women and three of the men had been shot. One man was dressed in camouflage fatigues and had a hole through his chest that looked like it had been made by an arrow. The bodies were almost completely decomposed.
    Eric stared. The name stitched into the shirt of the fatigues was Driscol . Eric remembered the name, remembered the uniform.
    It was the last time he’d seen Tim. Tim running toward Eric, gathering speed to leap the ravine and escape Fallows. Fallows squinting down the sights of his Walther at Tim. Firing. Tim’s leg kicking out from under him. Three of Fallows armed men rushing to his side, forcing Eric to flee. Fallows shouting, “He’s mine, Eric. My son now!” Eric diving for cover as the three men opened fire. But Fallows had called them each by name: Leyson, Rendall, Driscol.
    Driscol.
    It wasn’t hard to figure out. Fallows and his men had swept through here on their way to San Diego, found some people they could loot. Some ran, others fought. Those that fought died. But not before killing Driscol.
    Eric stripped Driscol’s clothing off and those of the thinnest woman. He put Driscol’s clothes on, though they were tight around Eric’s muscular chest and arms. He returned to the camp where he’d left D.B. and tossed her the jeans and turtleneck sweater.
    She didn’t ask where they’d come from. She just put them on.
    She was learning.

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6
     
    The leaflets fluttered down from the sky.
    “Here they come again,” D.B. said.
    Eric shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up. The yellow leaflets drifted out of the cloudy thickness of the Long Beach Halo like some kind of